Title: Blood and Fire

Claim: Highlander General Series

Fandom: Highlander/Supernatural

Characters/Pairing: Methos, Sam, Dean

Prompt: Red

Word Count: 905

Rating: 13-15

Author's Notes: written for crossovers100,

Series/Sequel: Mortal Ties Arc.

"These are incredible." Sam whispered.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Maybe, not seeing much of use." He made a face at the page he was looking at. "Stain remover recipes from a hundred years ago? Nothin that's gonna help find dad or help find what killed Jess and Mom."

Sam rolled his eyes.

Methos watched the two a moment then returned his attention to the books he'd gotten out of the basement vault. Nothing too interesting. Dean had a point. Accurate weather notes, crop notes, a bad year for bugs here, a harsh winter there. Notes for teas and poultices. A recipe for lamb stew. Detailed recounting of a cesarean section on a plow horse pregnant with twins, which while did not save the mare who was surely dying anyway saved both colts.

"Hey--" Dean suddenly burst out his eyes wide on the book in front of him.

"What?"

"It's Abigail's journal, July, 20th 1855, Bill won't listen. Thinks I'm mad. Thinks its the baby making me addled. I hate this place, there's something here. I feel it in my bones, especially every time I walk past the Barnes place. Eli Barnes is a good man. A blacksmith that has a small acreage and smithy just outside of town. His wife, Della, has become a good friend. Their children are very well behaved. Donald is a bit of a terror at times but the boy is only eight. No worse than any other. The girls Elizabeth and Lucille are sweet as can be.

Eli's brother Tom lives on the property as well. Has a small 1 room cabin near the smithy building, Lizzie and Lucy are scared of him. Donald goes out of his way to avoid him. Donald's hound, who is the ugliest mutt I've ever seen, but also one of the sweetest, endlessly patient with baby Lucy pulling his tail raises his hackles and snarls and barks every time Tom goes anywhere near the house.

I suppose one must give Eli and Della credit, they keep watch over Tom who's not been right since he was just a boy and nearly died in a fall from a hay loft. He'll sit and stare for hours at nothing, occasionally he has fits, but then there's the other Tom. Snarling, pure evil. He looked at me outside church last Sunday. 'Witch. Deserve blood and fire. blood and fire'

Bill thinks I'm a goose, foolish to listen to the outburst of a poor simpleton who has not been right in the head since he was a child. It's not Tom Barnes I fear. Poor unfortunate soul that man is. He's harmless enough, but I do believe that there's something else within Tom Barnes that is nothing short of pure evil. An evil that's taken root within Tom Barnes and will grow stronger. I can't shake that voice that sounded nothing like Tom, despite coming from his mouth. Blood and fire. And I swear for just a second Tom's eyes glowed red."

"Tom Barnes followed...but..." Sam shook his head. "Dean there would have been soemthing else. Someone else before mom if--"

Dean flipped back to a page his finger rested on to keep it's place."'March, 1854. Bill's asked me to marry him. We're going to go to Kansas. He's got work there his cousin Joe arranged the job with the rancher Joe works for as well. There's a new town they're calling Lawrence near where the ranch is.' This says the Barnes lived just outside of town but that was 1855."

"Is there anything more?" Methos demanded.

"August 3rd, 1855--Today we buried my Abby. Fever set in after our little girl Margaret was born last Sunday. The fever took Abby just before dawn two days ago. I'm putting this with the rest of the diaries that were so important to her and putting them up for little Maggie.

Bill Tucker" Dean read from the journal he held. "Glowing red eyes, she thought something evil was taking root. Just outside Lawrence Kansas in 1855. Hell, where our house was built wasn't even part of the town until I think the 1920's. Seventy years for the Barnes acreage to get absorbed into the town if it was in the area our house was."

"The old land records would show that." Sam nodded.

"Small children and animals don't know what they aren't supposed to see," Methos added his own agreement.

Dean looked at Methos confused. "Okay, animals can sense things but..."

"An infant doesn't have the reason that something shouldn't be there. A toddler will say mommy there's a scary man or an old lady or funny lights, whatever it may be,outside. The mother looks, sees nothing tells the child there's nothing. Eventually the child doesn't see it either. Sensitivity to things that are outside the norm are conditioned out. Kansas certainly has a violent and bloody enough history to give something evil enough energy to grasp hold and settle in."

"Makes sense," Sam nodded.

"So we've got it?" Dean said. "Just like that. Tom Barnes. Find his bones, salt and burn em? Its over?"

Methos shook his head. "We can only hope it's that easy, though I doubt it will be."

Neither Sam nor Dean had any thing to say to that. They didn't think it would be that easy either. Twenty years their father had searched, and Jess hadn't been anywhere near Lawrence, Kansas when she died the same way their mother had.