I pulled into the motel parking lot, there she sat. I'd recognize that car anywhere. The memories of her, I and whichever one of the boys I had been with at the time were some of the most interesting and, shall we say, spatially challenging of any I had. That back seat was large but neither of Sam, Dean or I were particularly short. Some people would probably give me some flack for having spent "quality" time with both of them, but life's short, especially in our line of work. Besides most hunters aren't quite as attractive as they are and I'm not what one would call a traditional hunter.

I parked next to Baby, got out and walked to room 211. This was a fancier hotel, it had more than one floor. It appeared the boys were living large these days. The curtain twitched before I could knock on the door, living large and more paranoid than usual. That's never a good sign.

"Still driving that piece of crap?" Dean said as he opened the door to let me in.

I looked over the balcony at my deep purple 2010 Challenger SRT 8 then back at Dean, "You mean the 8 cylinder, 425 horsepower, 6 speed stick shift that kicks Baby's ass on the straightaway and the curves? Yeah, guess I am."

He growled at me, Sam's muffled laugh came from inside the room. "Shut up Sam," he grumbled and stepped to one side to let me in.

"Nice to see you too Dean," I remarked as I walked by him and went down the small hallway then turned into the room itself. That trademark Sam Winchester smile greeted me right before I got bear hugged. Damn that man's strong, he must have started working out since last time I saw him,"At least one of you is happy to see me," I grunted as he held me tight for a brief moment.

"Hey there Running Coyote," Sam said, "We haven't seen you in a year or two."

"Has it been that long? Time flies I guess."

"I'm happy to see you too," Dean protested.

"You must be, that greeting was slightly more civilized then the last one."

Dean rolled his eyes, "I apologized! We were chasing a shifter."

I shook my head, "Oh that's right, that was the reason you stabbed first and asked questions later."

Dean threw his hands up, walked to the fridge, pulled out two beers and tossed one at me, "Here."

I caught it and glared at him, "Really Winchester? A beer? Get your ass over here and say hi the right way."

He managed to keep the smile off his lips but the edges of his eyes crinkled up and the right corner of his mouth twitched once or twice. "Oh fine." His hug wasn't as tight as Sam's but I was lucky I made it out of both embraces with my ribs intact.

"That's better. We'll teach you manners yet, right Sam?"

"It's my life long quest," Sam replied with a put upon sigh, "The weight of which is getting heavier through the years."

Dean's eyes narrowed as he sat back down by the window, "This is why I always try to keep you two separated."

I had to get one more dig in before getting down to business, "You old people are just no fun."

"Wasn't there something important you had to tell us?" Dean asked, choosing deflection over verbal hand to hand combat.

"I'll go easy on you this time," I said as I set my beer down on the bedside table. "Yes there is. Something's going on at the Reservation. Something I've never seen before. The rumor is that you two have been working your way up the all things dark and evil food chain so I thought you might have a clue and Bobby agreed with me. I usually go to him but he said you have some specialized gear that may come in handy."

"Yeah, we've acquired some new toys," Dean said, "Fill us in."

I didn't want to think about what I had seen but I didn't have a choice.

"It started a week ago," I began, the brothers shot each other a concerned look. "I'll come back and ask what that look was about when I'm done. Anyway, we were holding a healing ceremony and everything was going as planned. Then the fire that was burning outside the healing room started shooting up into the sky for no reason and black clouds came from nowhere and spiraled around us. We called on our Spirits to help us and try to keep us safe from whatever it was. The only gear I had with me was the pouches of salt I always carry. I drew a quick circle on the ground around myself, shouted at some of the other tribe members to do the same and threw them my spare pouches. The Spirits and the salt circles seemed to work and the clouds flew off in different directions. We all thought it was over. The Shaman finished the healing ceremony and we went home." I paused, took a drink and continued, "I told everyone to put salt on their doors and windows just in case and everything seemed normal the next day. It wasn't until the second day after the healing ceremony that things started going wrong. Fox Who Sings and her husband White Hawk are in the middle of Nagi Gluhapi and what they did, well, they are no longer pure."

I had to stop, I had been there and tried to stop them. It had started as an unprovoked fight but how it ended, the cruelty of it. What I sensed in them and from them, no Spirit I've ever seen or heard of felt like whatever had taken control of them.

"Nagi Gluhapi?" Sam asked, pronouncing it almost perfectly on the first try.

"Keeping of the Soul," I explained drawing blank looks from both of them. "The short version, we have different beliefs than you do about the soul. We purify a lock of hair of the deceased, tie it up in a sacred bundle and a close family member keeps it and cares for the bundle for a year. It helps those who are left behind when someone dies to mourn and accept death."

A slight look of disgust crossed Dean's face, Sam seemed caught halfway between shock and curiosity. I sighed. "I know how hunters usually view souls and remains. My people don't view them the same way white people do. The point of the ceremony is those who are Keeping the Soul spend the whole year trying to remain pure in intent and sacred in thought and action. We believe that this both helps prepare the soul for it's journey after death and helps the community because it encourages people to act in more respectful ways. If a Keeper of a Soul does something that is not sacred or that encourages disharmony we believe that affects the soul and it's final destination in the afterlife."

Dean shifted in his chair, processing what I had told him. It took a minute or two before he spoke, "Ok, so what did they do that screwed up this Nagi Glu-thing?"

"They went over to their neighbor's house and started a fight...,"

"So?" Dean interrupted.

"First off, during that year of Keeping the Soul you are not supposed to start fights or cause disharmony," I snapped. That was the one thing that always bugged me about Dean, he always cut in when others' were talking. "Secondly, it wasn't a friendly fight or minor disagreement Dean. They brought knives and stabbed the neighbors several times for no reason. I got there just before they finished off the adults and started in on the kids." My hands shook as the memory of it hit me again, "It was a slaughterhouse guys. This wasn't about murder, it was about desecration."

The blood wasn't what bothered me, it was the energies or auras as some people call them, that were in that house. Swirling pools of blackness and death spun around White Hawk and Fox Who Sings. I remember watching a documentary on the La Brea Tar Pits and how animals would get caught in them and slowly sink into them and die a horrible, long, painful death. What I saw reminded me of that. Pits of tar tainting my home, pulling everyone towards them. The ones they had killed, their Spirits screamed not just in pain, but in horror and fear of what was around them yet some force pulled them into those obsidian pools of pure evil. I wasn't sure if their souls would ever be able to walk the path into the afterlife and pass the tests to move beyond this world.

Sam's voice interrupted my thoughts, "Running Coyote?"

"Sorry."

"How'd you stop them?" Dean asked.

"After the night of the Healing Ceremony I had a hunch that I may need some help. I called Bobby who said Holy Water and salt would be the best things to use until I got you guys to come help. he also said that if I wanted to keep my friends alive the best thing to do was to try to weaken the things possessing them and then put them in this thing called a Devil's Trap which was new to me. He sent me a photo of one, told me how to make it. I drew one in an empty house on the Rez, then put a salt circle around that and another circle with a bunch of containers of Holy Water all laid end to end. Just in case. I live a block down from White Hawk and Fox Who Sings. I was sitting in my living room when something told me I had to go to their house. I grabbed the shotgun with the salt shells, the bottles of Holy Water and a friend and burst in. I was either too late or just in time, depending on how you want to look at it."I took another drink, "The Holy Water and salt made an impact and my friend, who's almost as big as you Sam, managed to knock them out. Then we moved them to the house with the Devil's Trap. I called Bobby to tell him I needed you guys as soon as possible. He told me where you were and I set out that evening. I hate two day drives."

Dean handed me another beer, I hadn't noticed mine was empty. I must have needed it more than I thought, "Yeah, sorry we weren't closer," he said, "but at least you didn't have to drive four days."

"True."

The brothers looked at each other again. I was pretty sure there was guilt in their eyes.

"Ok, enough of the secret glances you two. What do you know?"

"It's a long story," Sam started out.

"Shorten it then," I said. Apparently Dean isn't the only one who interrupts others.

He winced and what I call the "understanding wrinkles" appeared on his forehead. "We, sort of, accidentally opened a gate to Hell, but it's closed now." He rushed the last part out, hoping that somehow it would make what he had said all better.

I slowly set my bottle of beer on the table, "I technically don't believe in Hell but I would imagine that's not good. I'm also wondering how you "accidentally" do that?"

Dean took over, "That would be the long story part." His face held no expression which I had learned over the years meant he wasn't about to go into detail.

Trying to get Dean to talk about something he didn't want to was a battle I wasn't up to fighting at the moment, "Ok, so? You opened a gate to Hell. What does that mean exactly?"

"Things from Hell came out," Dean answered, "Demons."

Pain and shame came and went from his eyes, faster than you'd pound a shot of whiskey on a bad day.

"Are they what's controlling my friends?"

"At any time did their eyes turn completely black?" Sam asked.

"Yes, once we got them in the Devil's Trap. They went black, then back to normal and then they started ranting about how we were weak, pathetic things and to just wait until they got out."

Dean slammed down the rest of his beer, "You've got demons."

"And you two let them out?" My sense of calm was quickly fading.

Sam looked at Dean, his face tight with sorrow. "Yes," he admitted in a quiet voice.

"Can we get these demons out of them?" They both looked away from me, "I'm not going to like this answer am I?"

"We can exorcise them but the people they are in don't always survive that," Dean said, still refusing to look at me, "You trapped them early so there's a better chance since the demons haven't had time to ride the humans too hard."

"That's not all," Sam continued, "The people, your friends, they know what they did. The demons usually take over but let the people stay aware enough to see what they are doing."

I could feel the blood draining from my face, "So..." I couldn't even speak the words.

"Yeah," Dean answered.

I chanted a prayer to the Great Spirit under my breath as I tried to wrap my mind around what they had told me. As I did, I felt something and looked closer at the brothers. I usually don't go about viewing people's energies for fun. I've learned to control what I see and when I see it, so unless it's something truly powerful, like what was currently in my town, I don't perceive much until I want to. However, when I chant I tend to automatically begin to go into an altered state, my shock at what they told me made me slip up. There was something wrong with Dean and Sam's energies. If I didn't know better I would say Sam had died even though he was breathing and talking right in front of me. His lines of energy, his path, it had been severed then patched up with something that oozed darkness and lies, and Dean; I didn't even know what it was that I saw twisting and tying him to a path that seemed to lead to nowhere good. Behind and to the left of where he sat there was a slouching thing. It was vaguely dog like. It seemed to be stalking him, waiting for something. A writhing, sickly, purple thread of power stretched from the dog-thing's neck and looped around Dean's throat. I caught myself just before I bolted off the bed I was sitting on. The brothers didn't know all that much about what I could perceive.

"Hey. You all right?" Sam asked.

I stood up and started to close my alternate perceptions down. "I probably just need some food." They both gave me an odd look, then I remembered what they had told me, "We can't leave them possessed by those demons. If they survive the tribe will help them deal with what happened. What's involved in this exorcism?"

"Not much supplies wise," Dean answered, "We have everything we need in Baby's trunk. We can leave when you're ready. Demons have a way of convincing people to do things. If you have people watching them they're vulnerable to being influenced. The sooner we get there the better."

What I had perceived from Sam and Dean made things much more complicated. My teacher, Rising Dove, would be able to see how tainted they were and would not want to let them approach the demons without going through some sort of cleansing. I had no idea how to inform the brothers of that without telling them about what I could see. In most hunters eyes what I could see made me something other than human, which to most of them, meant something not worth keeping alive. I knew Sam and Dean were more reasonable than your average hunter but still. Dean had a point though, we had to get back as soon as we could. Which gave me two days to explain that I could see auras, talk to spirits and perceive supernatural energies to two of the best and most stubborn hunters in the country. On the bright side, at least the drive wouldn't be boring.

I decided to rely on sound military tactics, divide and conquer. "Good point Dean. Sam? I have an 8gig Ipod in the car and it's permanently on shuffle. Would you care to ride with me for a few miles?"

Dean rolled his eyes and Sam's face lit up like a kid on Christmas. "Hell yeah I would."

I winked at Dean, "Try to keep up darling. I hate not being able to get out of fourth gear because I have to wait for slow ass drivers in antique cars."

Dean closed his eye and took a deep breath, "Now I have two of them to deal with," he muttered, then turned and went into the bathroom.

Sam and I smiled at each other, he bust out laughing and grabbed his gear. "We getting something to eat on the way out of town?" He asked.

"Probably should, I'm starving and you know how Dean is. That reminds me." I grabbed my backpack and pulled out two pieces of homemade pecan pie I picked up on the way. I had passed a small bakery that was next to a gas station about four hours away from where the brothers were. When I got out of the car all that delicious aroma of fresh baked pie filled the air, even blocking out the usual gas station smells and I decided to bring a little surprise for them. Sam's eyes lit up and he opened his mouth to say something but I put my hand over his mouth before he could get a word out. "Shh."

He nodded, I pulled my hand away and winked at him, "How do you stay sane hearing the same five albums over and over anyway? I mean, isn't that type of repetitive listening a sign of senility?" I asked.

Sam choked back a laugh as I handed him one of the pieces. "Either that or insanity," he chimed in.

Dean's muffled and slightly offended voice came from the other side of the door. "I can still hear you, you know."
I crossed the room in three strides and stood right in front of the bathroom door, "Well, if you still have your hearing not all is lost my dear," I replied. The door flew open and I was treated to a full force angry Dean glare, green eyes hard and cranky looking, eyebrows lowered and lips tight. I raised the piece of pie to eye level and watched as his mouth dropped wide open.

"Is that?"

"Freshly made four hours ago. I even brought a fork."

He took the pie from my hand, "See Sam, at least she brings pie."

"And?" I asked.

He paused in between bites, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Silence filled the room for several minutes until Dean started moaning in appreciation, "God, I needed that."

"Glad I could help out. Shall we?" They both nodded, grabbed their bags and we headed to the cars.

"Do you think we could stop at the place you got the pie on the way back?" Dean asked as he loaded his bags into his car.

"Yes dear, but if you ask me are we there yet we'll turn right back around and come back here," I replied.

"A simple yes would have been fine." He got into the driver's seat and Baby roared to life. Sam and I got into my car, I pushed the button to start it and revved my engine the obligatory amount of times to prove my point. I looked over at Dean who shook his head as he backed out of the parking lot. Sam laughed, I turned on some music and pulled in behind Dean on the road. How the hell was I going to start this conversation?