Warning: may contain nuts and/or trace amounts of cocaine.
The One That Got Away
It was a tip from Bobby that got them started. He had wondered if it was one of the Seals, and Sam had latched onto it, and then they were driving across the country to a city they'd hoped they wouldn't revisit.
"Last time we were there," Dean pointed out, like Sam hadn't been there, like he couldn't remember what had happened, "two pagan gods tried to eat us."
Sam shrugged.
"What, that's it? We have almost nothing on this hunt. We don't even know if it's one of the Seals!"
Sam's eyes were hard and dark. "Look, man, it sounds like a demon to me. Dean, frat boys selling their souls? It screams demon."
Dean just shook his head and kept driving. "If you say so."
***
The problem with the whole frat-boy soul exchange was that the frat boys in question were still very much alive. If it was a demon, it wasn't a typical demon, and that made Dean pretty nervous. Sam was all brooding over it, but when they talked to one of the boys, he had nothing really coherent to add.
"She gave you free beer?" Sam repeated. He shot a disgusted look over at Dean and shook his head. "That was the deal?"
"Yeah man, it was awesome. I really needed that beer."
Dean met Sam's eyes and shook his head in return. If all of the guys who had sold their souls were like that one, maybe they deserved to be ripped apart by hellhounds.
"Can you tell me about this woman?" Dean asked, and the guy turned his head slowly to look at him, eyes barely focused at all. Even though the kid was sitting down, he was weaving back and forth like he was on his very first bender. Judging from his age, he very well might have been. "Like, did she have really dark eyes? They may have looked black, maybe red?"
"No, no. She was a blonde. No, brunette, but blonde too. It's kind of hard to explain. But she had brown eyes. No funny colors at all."
"Was there a time limit on the deal?" Sam asked. "Did she say when she was going to return for your soul?"
The guy shrugged, and then said the words that blew them both away, "Dude, it's already gone. She took it before she handed me the beer."
***
"So, somehow this demon is taking souls without actually killing the people first." Dean turned to look at Sam. "You think the guy was possessed?"
Sam scowled. "No," and the way he said it told Dean it was best not to press for more information. "What else did Bobby say about this?"
And then it was Dean's turn to scowl. "Yeah, he said that a few different hunters have been after this woman before. They all describe her as blonde, but seem a little confused on the point." He shook his head, tried to force a laugh out. "Bobby said that most of what they say is a little confused. Like they didn't know what exactly happened to them."
Sam's brows went up towards his hairline. "Maybe we're dealing with a trickster."
Great. Dean knew only a little of Sam's feelings concerning tricksters, but also knew that none of it was of the warm and fuzzy kind. "I don't know, but there's only one way to find out."
"How, Dean?"
He shrugged. "Wait for her on Frat Row."
***
"I hate this idea," Sam bitched.
Sam had been bitching an awful lot recently. Dean wondered if it had anything to do with Dean forbidding him from using his psychic crap to exorcise demons with his brain, or with the prospect of going toe to toe with a creature they had not ever managed to actually kill, or if it was about that thing that Sam was keeping from him. Oh right, they weren't actually talking about that last one.
"I don't like it much either, but it's the only thing I can think of."
"Doesn't mean it's not stupid," Sam grumbled, sounding like himself for the first time since Dean had come back from the Pit.
They only had the confused description of a few hunters and the drunk frat boy's say-so to go off of, and that alone would not have been enough to mark anyone as the monster they were looking for. Except...
They found her easily enough, a six-pack of Molson Ice in one hand. Her hair was definitely brown, a dark mocha, with threads of red standing out in the streetlight.
"Free beer!" she yelled. "I have free beer!"
She had a pack of boys on her in an instant.
"Dude, free beer!" one boy called out. Another added, "What's the catch?"
She grinned, flashed a victory sign, and replied, "Just hand over your soul, and the beer is yours!"
Surprisingly, there were a lot of takers.
***
"She's not a demon," Sam said, and the way he said it creeped Dean the hell out. Like, he knew. Without question.
They followed the woman, back until she reached her apartment. She lived in a decent enough place, what looked to be mostly student housing. It had a pool and a clubhouse and free wireless available.
"So," Dean said, "that leaves us with the question of what she is."
"Trickster," Sam said. But he didn't sound certain.
***
They got her name and history, confirmed that she had been born in the city of Ypsilanti, at a local hospital. She'd gone away to college, but not far. She had a roommate, a young black man, but the roommate thing didn't really fit with the trickster theory. In fact, nothing seemed to fit anything supernatural at all, except that they had seen her harvest six souls and put them in little bottles.
Not a trickster, unless she liked being thorough.
So they did research.
"Give me a good description of your roommate," they asked of her roommate, Lawrence.
He shrugged. "Messy, over-caffeinated goblin queen."
"Huh," said Sam.
***
They found another guy, Steve, one who had lived with her previously.
He was the same height as Dean, was very thin, and had a massive head of dark curly hair. He also could not seem to tear his eyes away from Dean, even when Sam asked him for a description of his former roommate.
"Fucking insane, Coke-obsessed goblin queen."
"Interesting," said Dean
***
She had a best friend, Misa, who didn't live too far away, and who seemed very groggy when they appeared on her doorstep and refused to leave.
"Loud, dyslexic, ADD goblin queen. Oh, and she's a caffeine addict, too, and I know caffeine addicts."
Now, Dean had never been to Stanford or any other college. Hell, he had barely managed to graduate from high school. But pattern recognition? That, he could do.
***
"She's a what?" Bobby demanded.
"Goblin queen," Dean replied.
"What in the hell is a goblin queen? Never heard of 'em."
"We don't know, Bobby. We were kinda hoping you would."
"Well, good luck. And be careful, ya idjits."
***
They decided to go in with silver, in the form of knives and bullets. Dean took a flask of holy water, too, even though Sam insisted that they wouldn't need it. They waited until Lawrence had left the apartment, then broke in.
There were stairs leading up from the front door, and by the time they got to the top of the stairs, Dean realized that the goblin queen had been expecting them.
And brought reinforcements.
The best friend was there, a short sword in her hand. "I knew it," she said, when she saw the guns. "You two are Hunters, right?"
"Uh," said Sam.
"Right," said Dean.
Without turning, Misa said, "Becky, you really need to stop the frat row soul collection. This is, what, the fifth time?"
Becky pouted. "Aw, but the souls are so pretty!"
Dean looked around, carefully. Every available inch of counter, table, window ledge, was filled with little jars. The same kind of little jars that Sam and Dean had watched the goblin queen fill with frat boy souls.
"This is fucked up," Dean said.
"Um, look," Sam said, "can we talk for a bit?"
Becky and Misa looked at each other, then Misa lowered her sword. "Okay," Becky said.
***
They sat on two battered couches, Misa and Becky on one, and Sam and Dean on the other. The couches had been covered with clutter until Becky had addressed a command into the air. Then, suddenly, they were clean. Dean still wasn't sure what to make of it, but from what he had gathered, the two of them weren't exactly deadly. There had to be some reason all of those Hunters came away alive but confused.
Well, okay, maybe Dean got the confused part.
"What are the souls for?" Sam began.
"Well, I'm broke," Becky explained. "So I've been trying to cut down on my bills. Have you seen Lawrence's computer setup? He leaves them running all the time. I have to be able to afford it somehow."
"I don't get it," Dean said.
"The souls," Becky clarified. "They keep the place cool in the summer, and warm in the winter. And," she picked up a jar, "when you shake them, they glow. See? Like little lava lamps, but without the risk of fire."
It was incredibly fucked up. Dean thought about saying so, but he still wasn't sure what exactly she was. "How did you get your power?" he asked. Two years ago, he would have figured she was one of Azazel's psychics, she even looked to be the right age, but Sam was the only one of those left.
"My goblins," she said simply. "Look, I'm not hurting anyone. The souls have an expiration date. After a year, they're not so glowy, so I let them go, and they go back to the frat boys. Can you tell your network of Hunters to stop coming after me? This is getting really old."
"We're just trying to understand," Sam said. "Really. So you are an actual goblin queen?"
She looked nervous, then, and her voice dropped. "That's just a nickname. Ah, my title is Great Blonde."
"But you're not—"
"Shh!" Misa cut Sam off. "Don't say that too loud, or they'll hear."
"Who's they?" Dean asked. "The goblins?"
"You don't see them?" Misa asked.
Dean looked around. They were alone in the apartment. "See them where?"
Sam grabbed him by the wrist, suddenly, and hissed between his teeth, "Dean!"
Yeah, and then he could see them.
***
They were about four feet tall, all of them ugly, but some of them almost cutely so. They had bat-wing ears, round faces, big eyes and noses. And they were constantly murmuring to each other.
"Those are goblins," Dean said.
Becky nodded, and when Dean looked at her, he could see that her hair looked a little less brown than it had been before. She tugged on a piece of hair that fell into her eyes. "The powers work on belief," she said. "Theirs." She turned over her shoulder, fixed one of the goblins with a look, and ordered, "Go clean my room."
"Yes, Great Blonde," they chorused.
Becky leaned back and sighed. "Good, now we can talk."
"You're brunette," Sam commented.
She shrugged. "Well, I was blonde when all of this happened to me. And they believe I'm blonde, so I am a lot more than I ever wanted to be. You know?"
"No," said Dean. "Start from the beginning. How did this happen?"
She shrugged again. "Kidnapping attempt gone wrong."
Misa sighed. "You're going to have to do better than that." She focused on Dean. "Alright, it's really all my fault. That's why I'm her bodyguard. I wished that the Goblin King would come and take her away, and he did."
"Uh," Sam said.
Misa continued, "So I went to rescue her from his clutches, but by then she had taken over. Had set up an internet connection and everything."
"I was LARPing with the goblins, and they couldn't tell it wasn't real," Becky said, as if that explained everything. It didn't.
"So, obviously, the Goblin King wanted her out. But as it turns out, there was no Coke anywhere in the kingdom. I don't think it exists there. Or, well, it didn't."
Dean had a headache. A massive, pounding headache.
"So," Sam said, "some of the goblins followed you?"
Becky's eyes lit up, and she tapped one finger on her nose. "But the Goblin King met our friend Carter and stalked him until he agreed to get married. So I'm not really the Goblin Queen. He is. I'm a lower-case goblin queen. The Great Blonde."
And they were back on the blonde point. "But you're not..." Dean stopped himself before he continued further. Becky got the point, anyway.
"I was blonde then," she repeated. "I had to start dying it. It was too noticeable. The more the goblins believe in something, the stronger it is. Normally, Misa doesn't know how to use a sword, but since the goblins believe she's the best swordfighter..."
Dean decided he didn't really like the way she trailed off. Though none of the other Hunters had been killed. Yet.
"So," Sam said, and it was nice that someone was following the story. "The more they believe you're blonde, the blonder you get, and the more they believe."
Dean immediately clued in on what Sam was saying. "And the more they believe you have power, the more power you have, and the more they believe in your power."
"Shit," they said together.
***
They left Ypsilanti behind in a hurry. Sam was inclined to try to recruit Becky for the battle against Lilith, but Dean didn't really like the idea. The goblins seemed a little too simplistic for that, and besides, who knew just how powerful their belief actually was.
It had taken Sam a few hours of solid arguing to be able to accept that.
They were on I-94, heading west when Bobby called to ask how it was going.
"So? What was it? I looked it up and goblins don't exist. Like manticore."
"Uh," Dean said, and looked over to the passenger seat, and Sam's expression. "Yeah. We know they don't exist." Sam sat up straighter in his seat, eyes wide and fixed on him.
"And?"
Sam mouthed a word at Dean, and he felt relief flood through him. The Great Blonde Becky needed to be kept away from Hunters, that was clear. Demons, too, for that matter, and Dean was already concerned that just having been there was enough to have both interested parties investigating the little college town.
"Trickster, Bobby," Dean lied. He'd tell Bobby the truth in person, where there was no chance of someone having tapped the conversation. "It was a fucking trickster."