Summary: When a witch performing human sacrifices casts a deadly curse, Dean finds himself in a race against time.
Another crazy story involving Dean and Sara. Is anyone surprised at this point? Sara Lucian is a character from several of my other Supernatural stories (which are listed in my profile for anyone who's interested). Reading those stories probably isn't strictly necessary, but might help. Sara is a friend (and nothing more) of Dean's who is also a young Hunter. She specialises in exorcisms and was trained by her mother, just as Dean was trained by John.
xxx
April 2003,
Dean had had some doubts about permanently road-tripping with Sara. Kick-ass exorcist, she may be, but she was also a chick. Turned out not to be that big a deal. She spent less time in the bathroom than Sammy did, even with her absurdly long hair.
"For God's sake, Dean," Sara said, reaching back over her own head to plait her wet hair. "Two months on the road with me and this still fascinates you?"
The girls Dean spent time with normally had long, perfectly styled hair. Practicality wasn't high on their list of priorities. Sara was different. And it was kinda hypnotising to watch her braid her hair back.
Yeah, it didn't help that he'd only had about three hours of sleep. But it had been so worth it...
Sara tied off the plait and slid a few hair pins into place. "If I ask something, are you going to be able to answer?"
"Depends. What are..." Dean yawned hugely. "What are you going to ask?"
"Do you want breakfast?"
xxx
A large fry-up and three cups of coffee later, Dean was feeling much more awake. Sara limited her normally-merciless teasing to a few choice comments about his taste in girls and unhealthy obsession with hair.
"So, any sign of a possession?" Dean asked around his last mouthful of bacon.
Sara shook her head. "Nothing. Last one was in only January, so it's not too surprising. But that was only a level three, so when one does show up..."
"It'll be nasty," Dean finished.
"I set up the tracking system in Black Earth. The Atwoods are keeping an eye on it. Weather anomalies, omens, the whole nine yards. They'll yell if anything shows up."
"Will's turning into one hell of a tracker, isn't he?"
"Much to Adrian's delight. He hasn't got to kill this many things since that invasion of gremlins."
"Good times."
"You want me to call them? Ask for a job?"
"Nah, I think we might have one already. Dad called last night-"
"Before or after you snuck off with that barmaid?"
"Uh, after."
Sara sniggered, earning herself a smack on the back of the hand.
"Anyway," Dean continued. "There's this coven in New York State. He wants us to go check it out."
"Witches? Human or demon?"
"Human, apparently. You know, herb bags and dream-catchers and henna tattoos. But they might be shifting into the darker stuff."
"Define dark."
"Dad thinks they're working their way up to a human sacrifice to earn demonic power."
"Delightful." Sara pulled out her wallet, fishing out some cash. They always split the cost of meals, Dean didn't know why but they did. "How do we deal with them?"
"If they're still human, we burn the books, destroy the altars. All we can do, really."
"What if they've already killed someone? Moved onto the demonic side of things? I mean, do we really..."
"Has to be done, Sara. It's not like the cops are qualified to deal with the Evil Eye."
Together, they stood up and exited the diner. The motel was just down the street; they could be out of there and on the way to New York in less than an hour.
"You've never dealt with witches?" Dean asked idly as they walked along.
Sara shook her head. "Mum didn't want me hunting things like that. In case I started looking at my own family and seeing targets."
"The whole Purge deal?" Dean asked, referring the time when Hunters had turned on anything even vaguely different, with exorcists and psychics at the top of the list.
"Guess so. What about you?"
"Dad hunted some of the demonic kind when I was a kid, but I was still on Sammy-watch. I know the principles, anyway. Most of the human ones are about as much threat as a puppy, but every now and again, one pops up with a real thirst for power."
"And power plus lack of control equals one hell of a mess."
"Exactly." Dean pulled the motel room key out of his pocket. "Oh, Pastor Jim checked up on this group about a year back. He might still have their names."
"Make things easier," Sara agreed. "I'll call him when we're on the road. Assuming, of course, that you'll be able to drive?"
She was smirking again, damn it, but Dean just shoved her into the room. They could argue about that on the way to New York.
xxx
It was amazing how much you could learn about witches and demons in a '67 Impala that was probably going way faster than was legal. These days Sara seemed to spend half her life riding shotgun in the beloved black car, on the phone to contacts, checking through the Lucian Diaries or even just debating the Monster of the Week with Dean. The other half was spent debating much more interesting things, of course, such as whether chocolate cupcakes were really a breakfast food and if Iron Maiden topped Led Zeppelin, although that last one had been called short before Dean was forced to abandon Sara in the middle of Colorado for blasphemy.
"Uh huh," Sara said, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she scribbled down the names Pastor Jim was dictating. "Yeah, I got them all. Thanks, Jim." She flipped the phone shut.
"So how many?" Dean asked, not taking his eyes off the road.
"Ten that Pastor Jim met last year, but he suspects they've been recruiting. He was kinda surprised that we were going to check them out though. Apparently not one of them had any real power. All henna tattoos and spice racks, just like you said."
"One of the new girls must be revving things up, then. Or they summoned a demon, traded for power."
"Right ray of sunshine, aren't you?"
"Did Pastor Jim say where we could find our little hags?"
"They meet at the women's houses, take it in turns to play host. Like a bizarre book-club or something, I guess. We'll just have to look around."
"Man, I hate legwork"
"Well, tough luck, Casanova. Hunting in ninety-percent legwork and ten-percent focused violence."
"You know, you're not a very sympathetic friend."
"Oh, poor ickle Deanie," Sara deadpanned, idly patting his arm as she flicked through some notes with her other hand.
Dean sighed dramatically. "Why do I put up with you?"
"Because I am so much more respectable that you." Sara tucked the notes away. "And I bet you can't get us there by lunch."
Dean grinned and urged the car forward a little faster.
xxx
River Mill,
New York State
River Mill was a small place, one main street, one school, lots of young families. Not exactly that kinda place you'd associate with the Dark Arts, but life was nothing if not unpredictable. At least this place had a decent motel.
"Okay," Dean said, coming out from the motel office with a room key dangling from one hand. "One room, guaranteed no cockroaches. And you owe me lunch."
Sara was leaning against the hood of the Impala, her back to him. "Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"I think lunch'll have to wait."
Dean followed her gaze to a newspaper rack. Police baffled by 'ritualistic' killing, and a picture of a smiling young woman.
"Shit."
He yanked open the Impala's door, grabbing his duffel from the back seat. The human sacrifice was only the start of the process to becoming a full-on, demonic hag with all the added power. The longer the witch had, the stronger she'd become. Time was now officially of the essence.
Sara kept a hold of her backpack and darted across the road to buy a copy of the paper. By the time Dean came back out of the motel room, with no luggage but a hidden and loaded Glock, she had the paper, a name and a location.
It was a start.
xxx
The area where Lucy Miles had died was still officially a crime scene, but the cops in River Mill weren't the most dedicated of the bunch. Luckily the town wasn't squeaky-clean enough to make Lucy their first ever murder victim, so at least there was none of that hype. Still, it took some careful timing and more luck than Dean was strictly comfortable with to get them both inside.
"Oh, man," Sara muttered, looking around. The building from the outside looked no different from any other house in River Mill, but the basement was a satanist's dream, straight out of a horror film.
Dean pulled out the EMF. "Room's clean. Except-" The EMF squawked as he approached the blood-stained pentagram on the floor. "Pointing west, right?"
"Standard evil pentagram," Sara agreed. "Required for human sacrifices." She crouched down for a closer look, being very careful not to actually touch the thing. "It doesn't look like there's any specific demon being bribed."
"Normally, the sacrifice would be to a demon-witch. Apparently it doesn't much matter which one," Dean said, moving away from the pentagram to scan the rest of the room.
"Mum always told me that deals with demons would come back to bite you in the ass. Why do these wicca-wannabes get away with it?"
"I don't think this kind of demon reproduces. Has to convert to survive, you know."
Sara nodded slowly. "So where do we go from here? There are no spell-books or altars to burn and nothing to help us with tracking down whoever did this."
"Trace the building?"
"Dude, the cops aren't that stupid. This place has been abandoned for six months according to the report."
"We'll just have to shake down the coven, then. See who Lucy's friends were, who she had a beef with."
"I just hope this town is another gossip-central kind of place."
"You're such a girl."
"And you still say that like it's odd," Sara replied. "Can we get out of here now? This place is giving me the wiggins."
Dean admitted defeat and put the EMF back into his pocket. The rest of the room was clean. "Your spider-sense tingling?"
"Like you need my freakish genes and upbringing to confirm that something nasty went on here." A dash of psychic DNA combined with an early exposure to the supernatural had given Sara a pretty accurate sense of the after-effects of magic. Of course, the bloody pentagram made that just a little bit unnecessary.
The two left the same way they had come in, going back upstairs and out the back door, then over the back fence. Dean had to give Sara a hand getting over the fence; it was taller than he was. River Mill had very private residents, it appeared. Good for Hunters who had to break-and-enter, but also good for whoever had lured or dragged Lucy here to be killed.
"So, reporters?" Dean said as they walked back to the Impala, referring to their pretence for speaking to the coven about the murder. "Cops are out of the question for a town this small."
"The report didn't say anything about the coven. It's not like these guys are in the Yellow Pages, you know? Going to them admits we know about them. I could try and join them?" she suggested.
"No way. We don't know which one is the killer." Dean paused, considering. "All of them are girls, aren't they?"
Sara nodded. "So you can't bluff your way in either. What other IDs do you have?"
"Uh, Animal Control, FBI, state troopers, reporters. Nothing really useful. Hey, what about paranormal research or something?"
"I'm such an idiot. The SPR, I've got a membership card."
"The what?"
"Society for Psychical Research, it's the oldest of it kind in the UK. Lucians always join, mostly to get access to their library. Some good books there. Including one or two that we had to confiscate, but they're pretty good people."
"What are they, ghost hunters?"
"They try to explain the unexplainable. They're not Hunters, but they're not amateurs either. So let's say that I'm here investigating common attitudes to the unknown as part of my work for the SPR and when I heard about the murder, I came to ask if the coven were being unfairly attacked by the ignorant masses like a modern-day witch-hunt."
Dean blinked. "You are getting way too good at bullshit."
"It's a talent. Can we do it?"
"Yeah. But we don't split up, okay?"
"Noted. So where does the head hag live?"
xxx
The 'head hag' turned out to be Amanda Roth, a polite, attractive woman with two children and a cute, if quiet, husband. Oh, and she practised witchcraft in her free time. Not that she called it witchcraft, Dean was sure. Probably 'opening the veil' or, uh, 'walking through the waterfall of power'. Something like that, anyway.
"And apparently she teaches arts and crafts to preschoolers," Sara read off the sheet, as Dean pulled the Impala up outside the right house. "Love to see those lessons."
"So, what do you think, innocent teacher by day, crazy murdering bitch by night?"
"Unlikely. The nice lady at the motel told me she runs art classes for adults four nights a week. Including, get this, the night Lucy was killed." Sara gave him a know-it-all smile as she got out of the car.
"A room full of alibis. That makes me feel better about walking in there."
"So how many weapons do you have on you exactly?"
"Two. You?"
"Just the one."
ID in hand, she led the way up to the front door.
This was the moment in the hunt when Dean always missed Sammy. His little brother had been able to win people over in a way that completely baffled Dean. He wasn't too bad, given the right person to charm, and something about Sara's English ways made people vaguely respect her, but neither of them had the flair for it that Sammy did.
Sara rang the doorbell, giving Dean another quick smile before it was answered.
She smiled at the woman. "Amanda Roth? I'm here from the SPR. I'd like to speak with you."
Amanda glanced at the ID. "The what?"
"The Society for Psychical Research, from England. I heard about Lucy Miles and I thought I should check that you and your associates weren't being unfairly... targeted. I know how easy it is for people to make the wrong assumptions."
The woman smiled. "We've never had any trouble here."
"I'm sure that's true, but people aren't normally at their most rational when 'ritualistic murders' pop up near a gang of self-declared witches."
"Lucy was one of us. We would never do something like that and these people know that."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I'm just a researcher, ma'am. I'm not so good at the whole... communication with real people aspect of life."
Amanda relaxed slightly. "Well, I appreciate your concern, Miss..?"
"Sara Lucian. And this is my associate, Dean."
"He doesn't look much like a scientist."
"Oh, I'm just here for the heavy lifting, Ma'am," Dean said easily, offering her a charming smile.
"What exactly do you research, Miss Lucian?" Amanda asked, looking back at Sara.
"I specialise in alleged acts of witchcraft, actually."
"Alleged? You don't believe?"
"I believe that science doesn't begin to tell the whole story."
"Hm. If you'd be interested, we're holding a meeting tonight, eight o'clock. There are certain matters regarding Lucy that we need to deal with. Although I'm afraid your friend wouldn't be able to attend. Masculine auras are too disruptive."
"Yeah, that'd be great." Sara didn't even have to look at Dean to know he was about to throttle her. "If you're sure I wouldn't be in the way."
"Of course not. Meet here?"
"Thanks, Mrs Roth. I'll see you later."
Dean had enough self-control to wait for the door to close again and for the two of them to reach the Impala, but only just. "Are you crazy?" he hissed. "You have no idea what you're walking into."
"Dean, that lady didn't have any power. Not a spark. She wasn't in on the sacrifice."
"Okay, so she didn't kill Lucy Miles, but that doesn't mean she wasn't in on it!"
"Can you imagine anyone letting a murder designed to create power go ahead if the power wasn't going to go to them?"
"And it's just coincidence that I'm automatically barred?" He loaded the words with sarcasm, making Sara roll her eyes.
"This coven is chicks-only, we knew that when we came here. Look, this might be our only chance. I go to the meeting, I see which witch has power, we check her out later. She's not going to try something in a room full of witnesses, Dean."
"She's a witch, she doesn't need to stab you or anything!"
"All that stuff we got from your dad and Pastor Jim, it all said that it takes multiple sacrifices to build up enough power to do serious damage. Lucy was the first, so that should rule out curses and if I don't let any of them grab any of my hair or personal possessions, no creepy voodoo dolls either. The majority of these guys couldn't float a pencil, Dean, let alone do me any harm."
"Yeah, and one of them is a killer with demonic sidekicks." Dean sighed. "Fine. But I'm waiting outside, alright?"
"Wouldn't expect anything else."
xxx
So Dean spent two hours loitering outside Amanda Roth's home, having given every woman who entered appraising looks, checking the EMF on the seat beside him every now and again for any sign of otherwordly forces. There wasn't so much as a flicker, which did absolutely nothing to calm him down. By the time Sara came out, he was getting really, really twitchy.
Sara slid into the passenger seat, tossing her backpack over into the back. "Well, that was scintillating."
"Let me guess. No power?"
"No witchcraft. Phases of the moon, strength in nature, menstrual life-force power thingy. These guys are either majorly good actors or they're amateurs. They were worried about starting to work on runes for protection and prosperity."
"So you've got nothing?"
Sara shrugged. "There was one woman who didn't show. Amanda Roth said she cancelled when she learnt that there'd be an outsider present. Now, it might be nothing, but..."
"It is kinda suspicious," Dean agreed. "What was her name?"
"Cecilia Grenfell. And, get this, she wasn't here last year when Pastor Jim paid his visit and she spent a lot of time with Lucy Miles. Oh, and Lucy was both eager, some might say too eager, to spread her wings mojo-wise and do some experimenting, and she was a virgin. She'd even taken this chastity pledge thing." Sara smiled. "I love it when people gossip."
Dean nodded thoughtfully. "So Lucy was a perfect candidate for sacrifice and probably pretty easy to lure to that house under the pretence of trying out a new spell or something."
"Looks like. Anyway, I figured we could call the Atwoods, get our favourite tracker to do some digging on Cecilia."
"Sounds good." Dean started up the Impala, slid it out of the parking space. "Hey, is Will still working on that plan of his for some kinda super-computer?"
"Think so. It hasn't blossomed into anything solid, if that's what you mean. He's spending most of his time helping Adrian, the rest of it helping us."
"Hey, you're the one who keeps calling him."
"Like you don't mind not spending hours on the laptop. Plus we both suck at hacking."
"That doesn't mean-" Dean slammed on the brakes as a car cut across them at the junction, narrowing avoiding a collision. "Son of a bitch!" He gave the other driver the finger, still swearing, as the car drove off.
"That was rude," Sara muttered, rubbing her hands where she'd flung them out to brace herself against the dashboard. "You ok?"
Dean was still fuming. "If that bastard damaged my car..."
"Yeah, you're fine. Come on, you can check your baby over back at the motel."
As Dean started driving once again, neither of them noticed that the second car had stopped just down the side road, its occupant staring after the Impala with fixed intensity.
"Centrum est obscurus. Tenebrae respiratis. Incende!"
xxx
Next chapter should be up by Wednesday, guys. Reviews are loved, adored and fed left-over turkey.
