The warm autumn sun warmed the lawns of the town, and the withered yellow leaves were rolled across the porch by the wind. There were grinning jack-o-lanterns and plastic skulls hanging on the railings at the door. A few children squatting on the lawn playing with rubber spiders were chirping, clamoring to hide the spiders on the neighbor's doorknob.
Mrs. Wallace got out of the car carrying a bulging shopping bag and a large bucket of candy. She smiled and waved to the children. Her high heels made a crisp sound on the wooden porch. She opened the door and shouted, "Luke? I'm back."
The bright white cabinets are spotlessly clean, and there are freshly unpacked pumpkin carving tools on the cooking table. Luke·Wallace is sitting in front of the baby chair, holding a plastic spoon in his hand, awkwardly feeding rice cereal to the child in his arms, with a little milky white stain on the corner of his mouth. Rice cereal, he didn't realize it yet. When he heard his wife's voice, he raised his head and smiled. The rice cereal in the spoon almost fell on the child's face. Xiaobao Bao frowned and raised his head hard like a fish rising out of the water to breathe, reaching for the spoon in Luke's hand.
"How's it going in the store?"
"Oh, it's crazy, everyone in the town is stocking up." Mrs. Wallace placed the shopping bag heavily on the kitchen table, leaned over to the baby chair, gently pinched the child's soft face with his fingertips, and said in an instant full of doting, "Hi, my Xiaobao baby, do you miss your mother?"
She turned around and opened the cupboard door to put the candy bucket in. Luke's eyes glanced at the bucket of colorful fruit candies, and her Adam's apple rolled unconsciously.
"Have you bought enough?"
"Hey, I fought with Norma Bleecker to grab these." Mrs. Wallace rolled his eyes at him.
"Honey, she is 74 years old."
"Then she is really knotty."
Luke stretched out his hand to open the cupboard door. Mrs. Wallace raised his hand and slapped the back of his hand, pretending to be angry and staring at him. "Ah↗ah→ah↗, have you forgotten last year? We finished giving out candies at 6:30, and in the end we could only give out coins to the children."
"Just eat one." Luke didn't give up and reached out to reach for it again.
"Ah↗ah↗ah→ah~, after Halloween, you can eat as much as you want." Mrs. Wallace stuffed the candy bucket into the back of the cupboard, turned around, picked up the baby from the dining chair, and shook it, "Who should take a bath? Huh? Oh, let's go!" She looked at Luke, "Are you coming?"
"I, uh, I'll be right there."
"Okay."
The footsteps of his wife carrying the child upstairs gradually disappeared in the stairwell. Luke instantly breathed a sigh of relief and smiled proudly. Like a child who succeeded in a prank, he opened the cupboard door, grabbed a fruit candy wrapped in transparent sugar paper, peeled it open and stuffed it into his mouth.
As soon as the sweet taste spread on the tip of his tongue, his face suddenly turned pale, and he let out a painful groan in his throat. He arched his body suddenly, and put his fingers into his mouth to pick at it like crazy. When he took it out again, his fingertips were covered with bright red blood, and there was a sharp double-sided blade lying in his palm, and the edge was still stained with his saliva and blood.
Blood dripped down his chin and hit the white floor tiles, blooming into dazzling blood flowers. He held the kitchen table and retched violently, making a whooshing sound in his throat. He spat out a second blade, his knees weakened and he fell to the ground. The third bloody blade slipped from his mouth and rolled under the cupboard.
He fell heavily to the cold floor, his eyes widened, and he completely lost his breath.
"Luke? What took so long?"
Mrs. Wallace carried the child downstairs and saw her husband and the blood spreading on the ground. The child in her arms was so frightened that she cried out. She let out a heart-rending scream and collapsed to the ground, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"
On the road at the entrance of the town, the Impala was slowly driving past the road sign. Next to the passenger window, Bai Haorui was leaning against the car door. Under the control of the fingertips True Qi, the spinning Five Emperor Coins suddenly spun wildly. The golden fire hidden between his eyebrows jumped suddenly, and a cold and sticky black magic breath entered his Spiritual Sense along with the wind.
He frowned, closed his eyes, and Spiritual Sense spread out in the direction of the Yin Qi, just in time to capture the moment of Luke's death, the wave of black magic with the meaning of sacrifice.
"What's wrong, Old Bai?" Dean, who was driving, noticed that his expression was wrong and slowed down.
Bai Haorui opened his eyes and pointed to the depths of the town. Five Emperor Coins on his fingertips had stopped, but still glowed with a faint golden light. "Something is wrong in the town. Someone just died. There are heavy black magic fluctuations."
Dean raised his eyebrows, cracked his lips with excitement, stepped on the accelerator, and the Impala let out a low roar and sped away in the direction of Wallace's home.
A yellow cordon was drawn at the door of the kitchen, and the forensic doctor was packing up the equipment. The flashlight came on from time to time, making the blood stains on the ground even more dazzling. Sam and Dean were wearing crisp black suits, showing their IDs with FBI badges. They were standing by the cooking table, asking Mrs. Wallace, who had tears in his eyes, about the case.
Dean While listening to the woman's choked narration, he walked around the kitchen, bent down to check the gaps in the cabinets, the cracks in the oven door, and even opened the power cover of the refrigerator. His fingertips ran across the cold metal shell, not missing any corner where something might be hidden.
Bai Haorui leaned at the kitchen door and did not come forward to interrupt and ask questions. Spiritual Sense quietly swept across the room. There was an undetectable trace of Pure Yang True Fire lingering on his fingertips., the heart of fire was beating steadily, and any evil breath that came close would be instantly burned out. His eyes swept across the blood on the floor, and then in the direction of the cupboard, and his eyebrows frowned slightly - that dark magic breath was hidden in this room.
"How many blades did they find in total?" Sam's voice was steady and gentle, with a soothing power.
Mrs. Wallace's tears fell again, and his voice trembled. "Two tablets are on the ground, one is in his stomach, and the other is stuck in his throat. He swallowed four tablets in total. How is this possible? How could he..."
Her eyes fell on Dean who was squatting in front of the oven, and she suddenly sank, sullenly saying, "Candy has never been put in the oven."
Dean stood up and patted the dust on his hands. There was no expression on his face, but his tone was very polite. "We just want to check thoroughly, Mrs. Wallace."
"Did the police find other blades in the remaining candies?" Sam took over and drew the woman's attention back.
"No, I mean, I don't know, probably not. I just... I can't believe that this kind of urban legend actually happened in my house."
"Much more common than you think." Sam said softly.
At this moment, Dean came out from behind the refrigerator, carrying Mrs. Wallace on his back, and shook the thing in his hand towards Sam and Bai Haorui - a black cloth bag with fine stitching and the mouth of the bag tied with a red rope. It was the cursed bag that the Witcher was all too familiar with.
Sam sighed in understanding, showed a comforting smile to Mrs. Wallace, and continued to ask, "Mrs. Wallace, does Luke have any enemies?"
The woman was stunned for a moment. "Enemy?"
"Is there anyone who has a grudge against him? A co-worker, a neighbor, or... a woman?"
Mrs. Wallace instantly understood what he was implying, his face instantly turned red, and his tone was full of anger. "Are you suggesting that my husband is having an affair?"
"I'm sorry, we just have to consider all possibilities."
"No! No, Luke would never..." her voice choked, "If someone wanted to kill my husband, wouldn't they find a more reliable method than 'putting razors in the candy he might eat'?"
Sam looked at Dean, Dean raised his chin towards him, and the two exchanged a look - it was confirmed that it was a witch who committed the crime.
Bai Haorui nodded slightly to Dean and mouthed two words: "Let's go."
Dean nodded clearly, Sam said a few polite words of condolences to Mrs. Wallace, and the three of them turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Dean:
A witch? It's interesting. It's really appropriate to do this on Halloween. I just don't know if this witch is just seeking revenge or if she has some bigger plot.
Sam:
The material of the curse bag is definitely not ordinary. The witch who can make such a thing is definitely not weak in power. It is definitely not as simple as ordinary revenge killing.
The motel room was not big, with the curtains half-opened and a dim desk lamp falling on the table. Sam was sitting on the sofa, with a thick ancient book on demon hunting and an open laptop spread out in front of him, and he was carefully dismantling the curse bag on the table.
Dean opened the door and walked in, threw the car keys on the table, casually opened a fruit candy, put it into his mouth and chewed it loudly.
Sam raised his eyes and looked at him, speechless. "Really or not? I just saw the miserable scene of that guy swallowing the blade, you still want to eat it?"
"Halloween, man." Dean shrugged, looking matter-of-factly, "It's only once a year."
"Yes, for us, every day is Halloween." Sam lowered his head and continued to remove the red string of the curse bag.
Dean sat on the armrest of the sofa, leaned over to look at the things he took out, and raised his eyebrows. "Don't be so disappointed, what did you find?"
"Well, we are indeed hunting witches this time, and this is not an ordinary curse bag." Sam pointed to the things opened on the table. There were three specimens inside: a rusty ancient coin, a bunch of dried dark yellow herbs, and a burnt piece of Bones the size of a fingernail.
"Oh? Really?"
Sam picked up the bunch of dried herbs and touched it lightly with his fingertips. "Coptis chinensis, an herb that has been extinct for 200 years. Medieval witches liked to use it as a curse medium because its yin energy is strong enough to cast The power of the curse is magnified several times. And this -" he picked up the ancient coin, "It is Celtic ancient coin, not an imitation of the new era. Look at the rust and runes on it, it is the real thing, at least 600 years old."
"What the hell?" Bai Haorui just came out of the bathroom and wiped the water on his hands. When he heard this, he immediately frowned and took a look at the herb. "Coptis chinensis has been extinct for two hundred years?!"
Dean picked up the burnt piece of Bones, put it to the tip of his nose and smelled it, then immediately threw it back on the table with a look of disgust and wiped his fingers on his pants.
"Also... this is the burnt metacarpal bone of a newborn." Sam's tone darkened.
"Uh, that's disgusting." Dean's face wrinkled up.
"Relax, man, this thing is at least 100 years old."
"Oh, really, then this is acceptable?" Dean rolled his eyes, "Witch, man, you are so perverted."
He walked to the chair next to him and sat down, crossed his legs, took out another candy and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Yes, the person who can make such a curse bag must be a very powerful witch, definitely more powerful than the ones we have dealt with before." Sam put the things in place one by one and looked up at Dean, "What about you? What did you find on the victim's side?"
"This Luke·Wallace is extremely ordinary. He works nine to five as an accountant. He loves his wife and children. He has a harmonious relationship with his neighbors. He doesn't even have a speeding ticket. I can't find any reason for anyone to want to kill him." Dean spread his hands and looked helpless.
At this moment, Bai Haorui was sitting on the chair by the window, and his fingertips gently brushed the ancient Celtic coin. A trace of Pure Yang True Fire lingering on his fingertips instantly penetrated into the lines of the coin., the runes that were originally blurry suddenly glowed with a faint red light under the burning of True Fire, and the obscure Celtic runes clearly appeared in his Spiritual Sense.
His brows frowned momentarily.
"The runes of Samhain Festival are engraved on this coin, not ordinary curses." Bai Haorui raised his eyes and looked at the two of them with a serious tone, "This witch is not killing people to vent her anger, but making blood sacrifices."
Dean was stunned for a moment and immediately sat up straight. "Blood sacrifice? What do you mean?"
"In the existing calendar of Celtic people, Samhain Festival, which is the Halloween you celebrate, is the day of the year when the boundary between life and death is weakest, and is the most suitable day to summon Hell The existence of darkness." Bai Haorui's fingertips lightly traced the coins, "The three blood sacrifices correspond to the three nodes of 'birth, old age, and death', which happen to be the prerequisite steps of the summoning ceremony. The first one died now, and there are two more."
Sam raised his head suddenly, flipping through the ancient book in his hand with his fingers. His eyes opened wider and wider, and his fingertips stopped on a page of yellowed paper. He murmured, "Haorui is right... Three blood sacrifices, the last day of the final harvest season... Why didn't I think of it earlier!"
In the dark basement, the deafening rap music was so loud that it hurt people's eardrums. Colorful strobe lights swept through the crowded crowd. Young people in various costumes crowded together to drink, dance, and kiss. Smoke filled the air, and the smell of alcohol and hormones mixed together, filling the entire space.
Jenny, who was wearing a nurse outfit, and Tracy, who was wearing a cheerleader outfit, passed through the crowd and were bumped by a boy in a zombie costume, spilling half of the beer in their hands.
Jenny rolled his eyes hugely and shouted at the top of his lungs so that the other party could hear him, "This party sucks! We might as well throw toilet paper in front of someone else's house instead of watching these idiots fool around here!"
Tracy smiled, and his eyes fell on Justin, who was leaning on a pillar not far away. His eyes lit up, and he took Jenny's arm and walked over.
"Uh, hey, Justin." Tracy's tone was a bit shy of a girl.
Justin raised his eyes, holding a cigarette in his mouth, and smiled, "Yo."
"Did you get the wine out?" Tracy's eyes fell on the wine bottle in his hand.
"Well, there are three locks on it, which is a pain in the ass." Justin raised his eyebrows, "By the way, are you going to the mausoleum party tomorrow night? It's in the old cemetery, it's definitely fun."
Jenny raised his eyebrows, smiled and leaned forward, his tone flirting. "Will you go?"
"Sure, I'm going to be so high that I can fly."
"That's definitely better than this crappy party for all ages."
Tracy smiled and hit Jenny, then turned to look at the big wooden basin in the corner, which was filled with water and with more than a dozen red apples floating in it. His eyes instantly lit up. "Oh, look at this, bite the apple!"
Justin sneered, with a look of disdain on his face. "Come on, biting an apple is too bad."
"Please, today is Halloween!" Tracy glared at him and ignored his taunts. He knelt down in front of the tub, held his long golden hair, and lowered his head into the water. Within two seconds, he raised his head with a red apple in his mouth, his wet hair sticking to his face. He took a big bite in front of Justin, and the juice flowed down the corner of his mouth.
Justin whistled. "I take back what I just said."
"Okay, I want to try it too." Jenny smiled and knelt down in front of the wooden basin.
Tracy walked to Justin, and the two talked together. No one noticed that the water in the wooden basin was slowly getting colder at a speed that was difficult to detect with the naked eye.
Jenny tried twice, but couldn't bite the apple. She took a deep breath unconvinced and buried her face deeply in the water for the third time. The moment she opened her mouth to bite the apple, an invisible force firmly pressed the back of her head, pinning her whole body in the water, unable to lift her head up at all.
"Wow, she held her breath for a really long time." Justin said with a smile and whistled.
Tracy also smiled, but more than ten seconds passed, and Jenny still didn't raise his head. His body was struggling violently by the wooden basin, and his high heels kicked wildly on the cement floor, making a harsh friction sound.
Tracy and Justin finally realized something was wrong.
Tracy immediately knelt down by the wooden basin, stretched out his hand to pull Jenny's shoulder, and said with panic in his voice, "Jenny?"
Jenny was still struggling wildly in the water. The force was so strong that Tracy couldn't pull her back at all. She turned around and shouted to Justin, with a cry in her voice, "Help me! Hurry!"
Justin rushed over, and the two of them worked hard together, grabbing Jenny's arm and pulling it up, but the back of Jenny's head seemed to be welded in the water and remained motionless.
"Jenny, what's wrong with you? Help!"
"Please, let go! Stop holding on to the basin!" Justin wanted to break open Jenny's hand that was clutching the edge of the basin, but her fingers were so tightly clasped that she couldn't break it open at all.
At this moment, the water in the tub suddenly began to bubble crazily, and white steam emerged from the water. The originally cold water boiled instantly, making a gurgling sound, and the water surface rolled and became frighteningly hot.
"What's going on?! Why did the water boil?!"
"Jenny, get up!!"
A vague scream came from the water, Jenny's struggle gradually weakened, and soon became completely motionless.
Tracy and Justin finally pulled her out of the water. Jenny's face had been completely burned, her facial features were blurred, and her skin was wrinkled together, which was horrible to look at. Tracy looked at the corpse, shaking like chaff. Justin supported the wall, bent down and retched like crazy, almost vomiting out bile.
"Oh, oh my God--"
The police and medical examiners have cordoned off the scene, with a yellow cordon at the basement door and flashlights flashing, making the entire basement pale.
Sam, Dean and Bai Haorui walked into the basement where the crime occurred. Dean stretched out his hand to stop Bai Haorui who was about to ask questions. He raised his eyebrows with a proud look on his face.
"I'll ask."
Bai Haorui rolled his eyes and complained, "Two words: underage."
"I don't know how..." Before Dean could finish his words, he was pushed by Sam. He shook his head helplessly, adjusted his suit jacket, and walked towards Tracy, who was sitting on a chair in the corner, shaking all over.
Bai Haorui followed Dean with very light steps, and Spiritual Sense quietly swept across the entire basement. The smell of black magic here came from the same source as the curse bag in Wallace's house. It was cold, sticky, and smelled of blood as a sacrifice.
His eyes fell on Tracy and he frowned slightly.
This girl does not have the cursed aura, but instead has an extremely weak aura of black magic that is homologous to the cursed bag. It is so faint that it almost blends in with the aura of ordinary people, as if it was deliberately hidden. She is not a cursed person, but more like... someone who has been in contact with the core of spell casting, or even participated in it.
Bai Haorui:
Something is wrong... How could an ordinary high school student have the aura of a spellcaster on his body? Did I see it wrong? Or does she have anything to do with this witch?
Dean had already shown his fake police badge and squatted in front of Tracy with a gentle tone. "Hello, I am FBI agent Siege. I want to ask you a few questions. Does your friend know a person named Luke·Wallace?"
Tracy raised his red eyes, filled with tears. He was stunned for a moment and shook his head. "Huh? Who is Luke·Wallace?"
"He died yesterday, and his death was as bizarre as your friend's."
"I don't know this person." Tracy lowered his head, his shoulders trembling, looking like an ordinary girl who was frightened.
At this moment, Sam took out a black curse bag that was exactly the same as Wallace's from the gap in the sofa, and raised it to Dean. Dean nodded clearly, said a few words of comfort to Tracy, turned around and walked back.
"How is it?" Sam asked.
"She said she didn't know Luke, and she looked like a frightened child." Dean frowned, "But she always felt like something was wrong."
Bai Haorui leaned against the wall and lowered his voice. "She has the aura of the same origin as the curse bag, very faint, but definitely there. She lied, and she is definitely related to this case."
Dean was leaning on the table, tapping his laptop with his fingers quickly, looking up all the related information of the two victims. Sam was lying on the bed, flipping through the thick ancient black magic book Celtic, when his fingers suddenly stopped on a page, he sat up suddenly, and his eyes opened wider and wider.
"I'm telling you, these two victims are very clean, and there is no reason for them to be retaliated against by the witch." Dean said without raising his head, "Luke is an accountant, and Jenny is a high school student. The two of them have never even blocked each other's social accounts, so they can't fight each other."
"Maybe it's not revenge at all." Sam's voice was deep.
Dean laughed sarcastically, "Wow, that's really insightful."
"Perhaps this witch is not venting her anger, but casting a spell." Sam handed the ancient book to Dean, pointed to the words on it, and read out, "'Complete three blood sacrifices in three days, and the last one must be completed before midnight on the last day of the Last Harvest Season.' According to the Celtic calendar, the last day of the Last Harvest Season is October 31st."
Dean's face instantly darkened. "Halloween."
"That's right."
"What are these blood sacrifices for?"
"If I guess correctly, this witch is summoning a demon, and it's not an ordinary demon - it's Samhain, Samhain."
Dean raised his eyebrows with an indifferent expression. "Should I think this name is very powerful?"
"Dean, Samhain is the origin of Halloween." Sam's tone was full of solemnity, "Celtic people believe that October 31 is the night with the weakest boundary between life and death in the year, and this night belongs to Samhain. People wear masks to avoid him, put candy at the door to appease him, and carve faces on pumpkins to worship him. He was expelled back to Hell centuries ago."
"So even if this product is returned to Hell, this tradition will still be preserved."
"Yes, it's just that now, Halloween is no longer about demons and blood sacrifices, it's about children, candy and cross-dressing."
Dean nodded, with a smile on his lips, "Okay, so which old witch who has lived for hundreds of years wants to resurrect Samhain and change this night back to its original appearance?"
"Dean, this is very serious." Sam's tone was extremely serious.
"I'm very serious."
"This is top-notch black magic. This ceremony can only be held once every 600 years."
The smile on Dean's face disappeared instantly, "And the 600-year period just ends...?"
"Tomorrow night."
"No." Dean looked down at the illustration in the ancient book - a devil with horns, standing on a pile of corpses, holding a bloody head in his hand, with endless dark monsters behind him, and his face completely darkened.
"Okay, so much death and destruction just for one demon?"
"Because he likes fun. Once he is resurrected, Samhain himself can summon the undead."
Dean was stunned for a moment. "What to summon?"
"All kinds of dark and evil things, too numerous to count, will follow him like the Pied Piper's mice."
"So there are ghosts?"
"Yes."
"Zombies?"
"Hmm."
Dean suddenly said seriously, "Leprechaun?"
"Dean." Sam called him helplessly.