Rainy nights always gave the asphalt a fancy gloss that reflected the headlights just right. Mix in some of ACDC's best tunes, throw in one often annoying but currently sleeping younger brother and add a dash of a really messed up case involving mixed in kids and there you have it. His life in miniature. Dean half expected Castiel to suddenly appear in the back seat just to make everything mesh together in the perfect nostalgia trip down memory lane.
Dean just hoped the kids were still alive. A chance to heroically smash down the door and rescue them all would really cap off the night. Of course, his luck being what it was, he'd probably have to kill them all for being infected by something terrible.
Best not think about that. Best to just drive, drum his fingers on the steering wheel, and wait and see. All he could do, really.
His phone rang, spoiling the moment, and he took his eyes off the road for a second to reach for it. Sam startled beside him, eyes blinking open and Dean spared a glance and a smirk his way as he pulled his phone from his pocket and raised it to his ear. "Hel-?"
Sam jerked upright. "Dean! Look out!"
Dean looked up at the road, just as a small figure hit the bonnet, rolled over it, smashed into the glass and bounced over the roof. Dropping the phone, he grabbed the wheel in both hands and controlled the impulse to brake so fast his wheels would slide out and slam the car into the trees. Instead he stopped as safely as he could, cursing his lapse in attention. Always the way. Drop your guard once, just once, and someone dies.
Sam was already out of the door, running back the way they'd came. "You okay?"
Dean joined him, swallowing something that tasted nasty. Bile, maybe. He didn't remember throwing up in his mouth. Of course, his fingers tingled like they did just before a particularly nasty hunt, so it might've been the fear. Though right now he wasn't afraid of a monster. If anything, he hoped it was a monster, because that little bundle lying on the middle of the road looked suspiciously like a kid and the last thing he needed was to kill a kid. Last thing the world needed was another kid dead as well.
Naturally Cain's mark sent all kinds of waves of joy and pleasure through him at the idea that he'd just mowed down one of the victims they were meant to save. He bit back that sickening joy and joined Sam by choking out a helpless, "Hey! You?" The words were weak, helpless, just like him right now.
The figure twitched, then rolled over onto its belly, and Dean couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief even though it was obvious that no one would be getting up from that unless they were possessed or a monster. Only question was, what type?
Sam clearly had the same thought, reaching for gun and flashlight. Dean pulled the same, and together they stepped forward.
The figure, a girl of around twelve, sat up and patted down her body like she was searching for something. "No! No!" The panic and anguish in her voice was just what you'd expect if a teen lost their phone, not if they'd been struck down by the Impala going thirty miles an hour, give or take.
"You dropped something?" asked Dean.
Her head whipped around, revealing pitch black eyes that were wide in confusion and shock. He'd never seen a demon look so worried. Normally they played it cool and calm, messing with their heads with an icy detachment. This one seemed tweaked, and not just because she'd just seen the Winchesters with their guns out. "You hit me..." She said it very small, like she couldn't quite believe it.
Dean holstered the gun and drew the angel knife, biting back all his bitterness at the fact that he'd get to kill a child tonight if Sam didn't make the exorcism. Hell, even with the exorcism, considering her injuries. To make matters worse that mark started pulsing again, offering him the delirium of battle if he just let himself go right at the girl.
Sam began the exorcism, syllables rolling out easily, and the girl flinched away, cowering from him. "No!" she gasped, throwing out her hands as though to ward off the words. "Not yet ... Crowley..."
Sam paused. "Crowley did this? Kidnapped those kids?"
"No, he sent me here to save them," she said, panting and pulling herself unsteadily to her feet. Her eyes were still black but there was something different about that darkness, or maybe something different about the face around it. A trick, a lie, clearly. The demon wanted him to think of the girl inside. "I know where they are and you have to hurry. They want to turn those kids into more demons. Illegally. That's not Crowley's way."
"You just got that girl killed!" snarled Dean, gesturing at 'it' with the blade. He couldn't think of her as a person. Not anymore. Just a shell. Already dead. "You shoulda been more careful."
"We don't have time for this," said the girl. "You have to follow or they will die and be consumed by darkness." And with that, she turned and ran into the woods.
"Hey!" called Sam. "Wait!"
But the girl was gone.
"Can you believe this?" demanded Dean. The rain was beating harder now, washing away all sign of the girl from the road.
"Doesn't seem like we have a choice." Sam headed into the woods. "Dude, c'mon!"
Dean swore under his breath, his anger giving the mark strength, then followed his brother through the trees. Twigs crunched underfoot. Wet leaves smacked him as his brother shoved through the branches ahead. Every so often they caught a flash of movement. A glimpse of the girl waving them onward. The sound of a hushed call up ahead. Every nerve screamed that it was a trap but still he went because they were here now and there were more kids to save, even if that one was a goner. Even if that demon had hurled it into his bonnet to his attention. It was the demon's fault. It did it on purpose.
They reached the edge of a downward slope all of a sudden and Dean had to grab a tree trunk to keep from hurling down the dozen feet to the bottom since the ground was so slippery. A house stood off just ahead, electric lights flaring in its windows and an eerie sulphurous stench gusting out of it with the wind.
"That has to be the place," said Sam. "Maybe she wasn't lying." He didn't look Dean's way. Didn't have to. Dean could feel the judgment wafting off his tense shoulders.
"Yeah, still likely to be a trap," growled Dean, looking at the slope to find the best way down.
"It is a trap," said the girl, appearing behind them. "But not for you."
Her face would be etched in memory forever on. Wet with droplets, long lashes, two plaits running down her shoulders in a typical little girl manner and wearing a long-sleeved blue frock that seemed decidedly old-fashioned. Her eyes were still black. Unusual for a demon. Normally they'd attempt to look human to get at him. Well, he wasn't going to accept that anyway. She'd probably already damaged the body enough to kill the girl before she'd hurled herself in front of the car. Wasn't his fault. The girl was already a goner.
"A trap for you?" asked Sam.
The girl merely quirked an eyebrow at that. "No, Sam. For Crowley. A stunt like this would draw hunters from miles around but if he comes to clean up then he just leaves more signs here for people like you to follow." She straightened. "It's starting... Go!"
"Now wait just a goddamn minute!" snapped Dean, but the girl darted between them and slid off down the slope. He stared after her a moment, then followed, finding it much harder to keep his own bulk out of the mud and slipping onto his butt at the last minute. As he hauled himself out of the mud, Sam tromped down behind him and the girl whipped a rock through one of the windows. "Damnit!" So much for the stealthy approach.
A boy appeared in the window, gazing straight at them and over the girl who crouched down beneath the window. He gestured through the broken glass and with the flick of the demon boy's wrist, Dean felt the rush of force lift him off his feet and slam him into Sam, tumbling the two back into the mud. Then the boy screamed and the force vanished. Dean pulled himself off his brother, stepping on Sam's foot and eliciting a grunt of pain as he did so, and looked to see the girl dropping a glass jar and the demon boy reeling away and clutching at his hissing face like she'd just thrown some holy water on him.
Man, didn't that just take the cake. Demons using bane weapons against each other. Seemed like they were as fractious as before which was good. Who needed a united enemy?
The girl gestured for the two of them to hurry up and join her, but Sam started the exorcismal chant which slowed him down. The chant wasn't concise. It wasn't efficient. But it sure did beat shoving an angel knife through a kid. So Dean rushed forward and left Sam to talk and walk, just as a woman stepped out the door, dressed in ceremonial robes and clutching some kind of relic. She didn't seem affected by the chant, so Dean dove toward her and plunged the knife straight into her abdomen. She died real easy, but without the usual I'm-a-demon effect, so she probably was just some kinda witch.
The exorcismal chant was half-done but then two men were charging forward with guns. Dean kicked the dying witch toward them, unsheathing the knife in the same movement from her bowels and threw himself to the mud moments before the guns barked toward him. Damnit, why couldn't they be cocky enough to rely on their magic just like most bugaboos?
He hauled himself up into a crouching position with gun in hand, ready to slam into the first one that appeared at the door. He gestured with his other hand for Sam to find some cover but didn't spare a glance his way. He wanted to check that his brother was okay but now was not the time to take his eyes away from the doorway.
The creepy little demon girl was crouched on the other side of the doorway, staring at him and completely unaffected by Sam's exorcismal rite. How was *that* even possible? She had the most serious look on her face that would have been adorable if not for those evil eyes and the fact that the real little girl was likely suffering excruciating pain on the brink of death.
Then one of the witches were stepping through the doorway and Dean pulled the trigger, aiming for the shoulder. His gun clicked. Nothing. Malfunction. Stupid witches. He was cursing his luck and their magic as the witch turned toward Dean, ready to pull his own trigger. Even if Sam tried to fire mid-exorcism, his gun probably wouldn't work either. Dean tried a shrug, a half-raised hand, hoping to be taken prisoner and given a second chance but the witch didn't seem to be in the taking prisoners mood.
Then the little girl demon was on him, her hands clasped to the witch's neck with her legs wrapped around his waist. The reaction was ... impressive. The man shuddered, choked out half a scream and then she snapped his neck with a wrench of her hands. Little kid demon was strong. As the two of them dropped together, Dean charged past toward the surprised third witch and plunged his knife right in the man's throat. The little spurt of warm blood that hit Dean's face was satisfying on a level that few things were these days, and he had to hold back the admittedly gross urge to lick the blood off his own face.
At that moment, the teenaged demon boy belched forth his demon in a hail of smoke that ended with him half-flopped over the kitchen table, panting but alive.
"You okay?" asked Dean.
The boy just raised a weary head to look at him, then slid off the table and crawled under it, which Dean took as an answer in the affirmative.
The creepy girl demon just ran past the two of them into the back room. Dean followed, desperate to keep the good times rolling with some more rescued kids to try and outweigh that one dead one that kept looking at him and saving his life.
The room they ran into was probably the living room once but now it was full of seven kids all chained around a cast iron urn-cauldron-thingy full of some kind of eerie grey stuff that looked halfway between ash and rock salt, and was probably neither of those things. The kids all had symbols carved in their right hands that looked freshly cut, and there was no sign of any more witches or demons. Sam followed right behind, chanting up a new exorcism, but none of the kids so much as flinched.
Not even the creepy little girl demon who dropped down near an even littler girl who looked quite like her.
"You have now been rescued," said the little girl demon in that super-serious tone. She passed something to the smaller child. "I am sorry but your older sister can't be returned to you just yet."
The smaller one simply stared at her, clutching that little something in both hands. "Why?"
Because she's dead. Because I hit her with my car. Thoughts that Dean had but couldn't say so he just stood there, watching as Sam unlocked the manacles with keys he'd found somewhere and wondering if he should just stab that demon girl now or wait until they were alone.
"What the hell's going on?" asked Sam, ever the curious one. "You didn't get exorcised like that other demon."
"The coin Alice holds is charged with her prayers and can counter any exorcism so long as the one holding it earnestly means to protect her," said the creepy little girl, pointing at her host's sister. "It is a new spell made possible in God's absence."
"Riiight," said Dean, gun in his holster and hand inching toward where he kept the angel blade. "Look, you and me should go talk outside."
"I don't believe that is necessary. You will take these children home to their families. We don't need to talk to that."
The little human sister gazed up at the creepy one with the kind of teary-eyed intensity that reminded Dean of Sam. Naturally. Because this wasn't a bad enough situation. "But Rita needs to come home," said the little girl.
"She will," lied the little demon girl, crouching down and giving Alice a hug that made Dean want to stab her in the back. He didn't because he figured everyone here was traumatised enough and especially because he didn't want to deal with Sam's silence on the car ride back. It was probably the Mark urging him not to care about that. At least he hoped so.
He didn't want to tell Alice the truth, but she deserved it, so why couldn't he speak and just say the damn words? It's not like the lies changed the situation.
"What the hell are you?" demanded Sam, once the last of the other kids - who were conspicuously quiet - were uncuffed.
The demon turned her black-eyed stare on Sam which was more disconcerting than with the usual demon because there was emotion on her face. Hard to read emotion, but certainly not the usual Screw-You sarcasm he was used to. "You know what I am."
"You don't act like any demon I've ever met before," said Sam, though he still ushered each kid he freed out the door.
"That makes sense," she said, as though the answer were obvious. She stepped away from Sam as he freed her host's sister, keeping out of easy reach and moving further away from Dean.
"Why?"
"Because we haven't met before."
"That's not an answer," said Sam.
She tilted her head to one side and gave him a smile that seemed genuinely amused, though her frown made her seem a little troubled. "I have fulfilled my task. Crowley will be pleased." She smiled all the more broadly, like she'd just told a joke to a crowd who wouldn't get the punchline. "Goodbye Sam, Dean."
Dean lunged for her, pushing past Sam. "You're not going anywhere!"
But she simply danced away with surprising speed, rushed for the door, whipping it open and closed before he could reach it. Dean went for the door, but the handle hung crookedly and wouldn't turn right. By the time he had shouldered the door open, she was gone.
"Dean ... we should help these kids get home first," said Sam, ever the voice of reason.
Dean just nodded and sighed through gritted teeth. "Sure, okay."
Crowley was going to hear about this.