Part One

Memphis, Illinois

"Charles Archer, age twenty-seven. Last seen leaving the diner on Saturday night."

"And they found him yesterday morning?"

"Yeah. What was left of him."

Sam sighed and pushed the autopsy photos across the table to his brother. Dean looked down at the pictures, but shoved them back and turned away almost immediately.

"Dude, that's gross."

Sam nodded and continued digging through the stack of papers on the table in front of him. "They know he died the same way as the others they've found, in some kind of animal attack. But they still don't know what it was that killed them. The best they can come up with is that they were mauled to death by some kind of big cat, maybe a bobcat."

"What gave it away? The giant bloody paw prints or the claw marks all over them?"

Sam tilted his head in irritation.

Dean shrugged, reached over, and picked up the news clipping that sat on top of Sam's pile. He glanced through it quickly, then briefly at the autopsy photo again, then back across at Sam. "Bobcats don't do damage like that," he said.

Sam shook his head. "Not usually, no. And even if they do attack humans, they aren't big enough to leave marks that deep or that far apart. Combine it with the eyewitness accounts..."

"Wait," Dean interrupted. "There are witnesses?"

"Only two," Sam answered. "Hunters out walking their traps. They're the ones who found the body. And they've both been dismissed as unreliable."

"Why?"

Sam laid all of the papers in his hand back on the table and leaned back in his chair. "Because they said they saw a black lion."

Dean almost smiled. "Not many of those in Southern Illinois, are there?"

"Not many of those anywhere." Sam stood from the table and walked toward the bed he'd tossed his bags on.

The Oakridge Motel wasn't really different from any other motel they'd stayed in, except that maybe the rooms were a bit less worn looking and a bit better maintained. Simple dark blue bedspreads, newer-than-usual beige carpet, tasteful wallpaper, heavy oak furniture, and an air conditioner that actually worked were all unexpected bonuses. Even better, the plumbing actually worked, and the liquid that came out of it didn't look or smell like anything other than water.

They'd gotten to Memphis earlier that morning and checked in, then had gone out together for some extra research above and beyond what they'd been able to do online. After a few hours at Evans Public Library had failed to turn up anything even remotely supernatural in the town's history, they'd grabbed a quick lunch at the diner next to the motel and settled back into their room to start digging for other possibilities.

Sam pulled his laptop out of its bag and headed back to the table.

"How many have there been?" Dean asked as he leaned back in his chair.

"Charles Archer was the fourth." Sam pushed the laptop open and typed in his password. "In six weeks."

Dean pushed himself up from his chair and walked across the room aimlessly while his brother started the research again. "Four men turn up dead, ripped to shreds and missing all their hair, in less than two months, from a town of less than five hundred people, and no one thinks that's suspicious?"

"Even if they are suspicious, what are they going to blame it on?" Sam asked. "Wild animal attacks is the best they can come up with."

"What, they think Garfield's gone around the bend and started offing people?"

Sam rubbed his forehead with his fingers and shook his head. "Do you know what's killing them?"

Dean stopped pacing and leaned back against the wall. "What? No."

"And you know more about this kind of stuff than anyone in this town does." Sam looked Dean right in the eye. "If you don't know what's doing it, how are they supposed to figure it out?"

Dean scratched at the back of his head absently, then let his hands fall to his sides. "Okay. So where do we start? We've got nothing to go on but the bodies."

"Right." Sam looked back down at his laptop and started typing. "There's no history of anything supernatural here, not so much as a friendly local ghost, which is really weird. So whatever it is, it's probably not tied to this location."

"So what, then? A transplant? Like that scarecrow god in Burkitsville?"

Sam shrugged, trying not to think about what that particular god had almost cost them. It had been six months since they'd burned that apple tree, but the thought of how close he'd come to losing Dean that night – because he'd taken off after their father and left him alone, with no one to watch his back – still bothered him. Add in the fact that he'd met Meg while he was away from Dean, exposing them to the demon she worked for, almost resulting in all three Winchesters' deaths... Burkitsville, Indiana was one town that he didn't really want to revisit, literally or figuratively.

"Maybe. But that one left a really long line of vanished people stretching back hundreds of years. If there's something like that here, this is the first time it's acted up."

Dean pushed off of the wall and walked back to the table, put his hand on the back of Sam's chair and leaned over his shoulder. "Or maybe it just got here. What are you looking at?"

"Recent births. Maybe something's just been reborn?"

Dean shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Something that would kill this many men in such a short time, and in the exact same way every time, has a reason for it. It's probably been doing this for a while."

Sam chewed on his lip in thought. "Somebody summoned something, then? Or woke it up?"

"Check recent construction records," Dean suggested. "Maybe they dug it up."

Sam tapped on the keyboard, then scrolled down the screen, shaking his head as he did. "There's really not been much in the past year. A couple of houses by the lake, a new Wal-Mart out by the highway, a Taco Bell..."

Dean tapped the screen with his finger. "Some sort of religious center," he said. "Got any more details on that one?"

Sam clicked through a few links, and before long, he found himself looking at a website that explained exactly what sort of religious center had been built in Memphis and why. He leaned back in his chair, and Dean straightened his back and stood.

"Does that say...?" Dean began.

"Yeah," Sam answered with a nod of his head. "A temple. To the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet."

"That's a strange thing to find in Illinois."

Sam pulled up another window and typed Sekhmet's name into a search engine. Dean was still standing behind him, staring at the computer across his shoulder.

"How many black lions are there in Egyptian mythology?"

A jumble of images appeared on the screen, and Sam scrolled through them quickly. One of them caught his eye, and he clicked on the thumbnail to enlarge it. The image of Sekhmet that popped up left them with very little doubt as to what they were dealing with in Memphis, Illinois.

"At least one."


Dean climbed out of the Impala and tugged at the sleeves of the uncomfortable black suit as he walked around to the sidewalk and waited for Sam to get out. The sign in front of them said Grey's Funeral Home in swirly, elaborate letters. This was what passed for a medical examiner's office in Memphis, and the funeral director, David Grey, was also the county coroner.

"So we see if we can get anything from what's left of these bodies," he said, "and tonight, we go scope out that temple?"

Sam closed the car door and walked down the sidewalk with his brother. "I don't think we have to do it at night," he said. "The website said it's open to all visitors, twenty-four hours a day. There probably won't be much in the way of security."

Dean gave him a sideways glance as they walked. "How much security do you need if you can turn yourself into a lion?"

"True," Sam admitted. "But if we're gonna run into a lion, wouldn't you rather do it during the day?"

Dean pulled the funeral home's door open and motioned Sam to walk ahead of him. "I'd really rather not run into one at all."

"I have this feeling that we're not going to get much of a choice," Sam pointed out.

"Okay, so during the day," Dean conceded. "We'll be back to the motel before dark. The plan might change depending on what we find here, though."

They didn't have to go very far to find David Grey. The heavyset, bald man was walking down the hallway toward them when they walked in, and he held his hand out to them both immediately.

"Can I help you gentlemen with something?"

Dean reached into his pocket, pulled out the fake badge he'd gotten from the glove box, and flashed it; Sam did the same beside him. "Agents Mustaine and Ellefson, US Fish and Wildlife. We're here about the animal attacks. I understand you've got the bodies here?"

The man looked back and forth between them, obviously confused. Sam stepped forward.

"We're here because of the witness claims that there might be a lion involved."

David shook his head and smiled. "There's no lions around here. Not even mountain lions." He turned back down the hallway and motioned for them to follow him. "You boys are welcome to take a look, see if you can find something I missed, but I think you're wasting your time. You need to be looking for an overgrown bobcat, not a lion."

Dean and Sam shared a look of disbelief behind the mortician's back. "Do bobcats usually get big enough to be mistaken for lions?" Sam asked.

"Well, no," David answered as he pulled open the door to the embalming room. "That's why I said overgrown."

They followed him through the door, but stopped short when they saw the lump lying on the metal table, covered with a sheet. Sam and Dean both glanced around the room, looking for the drawers they'd been expecting to see.

David smiled when he saw the expressions on their faces. "Small town, boys. I make do with what I've got. Refrigeration units are through there, if you need to see his," he said, pointing at the door in the back wall. "He's been in number three since he got here. I pulled him out because I was getting ready to, well, get him ready."

"Ready for what?" Sam asked.

"Well, his funeral."

Dean straightened a bit in surprise. "You're burying him?"

"What else do you expect me to do with him?" David asked suspiciously.

"Where are the others?" Dean asked as he glanced around the room.

"Already in the ground." David crossed his arms across his chest. "You boys ain't from around here, are you?"

Dean shook his head wordlessly, and Sam turned back to the mortician. "No, we're not. We were expecting... we're just used to having more time to conduct an investigation."

"And those other bodies might have had evidence on them," Dean added.

"There wasn't any evidence," David said. "And you're not gonna get any from Charlie, either." Sam thought he detected a trace of sadness in his voice. "There's not enough of him left. His mother asked me for an open casket. Can you believe that?" When he shook his head and looked down at the floor, Sam knew that the sadness he'd heard was real. "Poor kid."

"Did you know him?" Sam asked.

David nodded slowly. "Of course I did. I've known all four of these boys since they were born. And now something's out there, tearing our boys apart, and I'm supposed to put them back together for their moms to bury..."

"What can you tell us about Archer?" Dean interrupted. "Anything in particular stand out about him?"

David shook his head and shrugged. "Charlie was a good kid. They were all good kids, all of 'em. Maybe a little confused, maybe chased the girls a bit more than they should have, maybe spent too much time at the bar, but what else were they going to do? A town this small doesn't really have much to offer boys like them."

"What bar is that?" Sam asked.

"The Oasis," David answered. "Only bar in town." He tilted his head in confusion. "Why do you care about that? They were killed by an animal in the woods, not by someone at the bar."

"We just need to check everything we can," Sam lied quickly. "Talk to people who knew him. Maybe he knew something about a lion being around here."

"I keep telling you, there's no lion around here. If you're going to stop what's really killing our sons, you're going to have to let that one go, boys." David sighed and turned back toward the door. "I'll be in my office when you're done. Just come find me and let me know when I can put this poor kid to rest."


David Grey was right about there not being enough of Charles Archer left to get any evidence from. But they'd learned quite a bit from what wasn't on what was left of his body.

"No sulfur," Sam said as they walked through the door and back into their room at the Oakridge.

Dean had already taken off his jacket and tie, and he was unbuttoning his white shirt as he walked across the room.

"No ectoplasm," Sam continued. "So whatever it is, it's not a demon or a spirit."

Dean slipped his shirt off and kicked off his shoes. "I thought we already decided that we're dealing with some sort of Egyptian god."

Sam shrugged, tossed his jacket down on his bed, and sat down. "I still think we are," he said. "But it doesn't hurt to eliminate the usual suspects."

Dean continued changing back into his normal clothes, and Sam stood and walked to the bathroom.

"If it wastes time, then it's hurting us," Dean said as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. "Because we've got a little over twenty-four hours before what ever this is kills again. What we need to do right now is figure out how to kill this... what's its name again?"

"Sekhmet," Sam called back through the open bathroom door.

"Yeah, Sekhmet. We need to figure out how to kill it."

"Her," Sam corrected.

"Her what?"

"Sekhmet's a goddess," Sam pointed out. He tossed the hand towel down on the sink and walked back into the bedroom. "She's a she. We need to figure out how to kill her."

Dean rolled his eyes. "She's an it," he said. "And we're gonna kill it." He walked to the table, flopped down in the chair, and opened the laptop as Sam started changing. He typed the password in and opened a browser. "So, how do you kill a goddess?"

Sam shook his head. "I have no idea. I mean, if the myths are anything to go by, then it was something different for each of them."

"Is there lore about the Egyptian gods, aside from the myths?"

"No," Sam admitted. "They're all we've got."

"Then the myths are what we go by," Dean said, tapping at the keyboard carefully. "So, all we need to do is look it up and figure out how to kill it."

Sam looked up from tying his shoes and smiled knowingly. "You haven't done much research on Egyptian mythology, have you?"

"No," Dean answered. "Never had to before." He looked up at Sam over the monitor. "Why?"

"Just read," Sam said, turning his attention back to his shoes.

A few minutes of silence followed, during which Dean continued his research and Sam waited for the inevitable outburst from his brother. He didn't have to wait very long.

"Oh, come on!" Dean shouted. The exasperation in his voice was obvious. "None of these sites say the same thing!"

Sam stood up and walked toward the desk, the small smile still in place on his lips. "Yeah," he said, dropping himself into the chair across the table from Dean.

"How the hell are we supposed to know what's true and what's not?" Dean leaned back in his chair and gestured angrily at the computer.

"We read through all the different stories and pick out the parts that they all have in common," Sam explained. "It's not one hundred percent accurate, but it's as close to true as we're ever going to get. The biggest problem is figuring out which 'facts' are metaphors and which are actual facts. Because a lot of these old myths and legends are filled with symbolic meanings that aren't immediately clear."

"Metaphors and symbolism, huh?"

"Yeah."

Dean spun the laptop around and shoved it across the table. "Have at, nerdboy."

Sam grinned, looked down at the screen, and started scanning the pages Dean had found.


"Okay. Let's recap." Dean downed the glass of water he'd just filled, put the glass back in the sink, and turned around. "So, Sekhmet is the goddess of, well... sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, basically."

Sam rolled his eyes but nodded his head. "Yeah, basically."

"And the sun dude..."

"Ra," Sam supplied.

"Right. Ra got pissed off and sent her to kill all the men?"

"All of mankind," Sam corrected. "Not just men."

"Yeah, but she's only killing men."

Sam glanced up briefly. "So we think she's taking the 'man' part of mankind literally?"

Dean walked over and sat heavily on the end of his bed. "Then this Ra guy changed his mind, but he couldn't think of a way to stop her. So he got her drunk and she just forgot she was supposed to kill everyone?"

"Yep."

"So where's she been for the past three thousand years? Why haven't we run across her before?"

Sam shook his head in confusion. "I don't know. Maybe she just remembered what she was sent to do?"

"A three thousand year bender," Dean said, pursing his lips in consideration. "That sounds fun."

Sam looked up at him with narrowed eyes, and the smile disappeared from Dean's face.

"So we know how to stop her in the short term. But we still have no idea how to kill her."

Sam sighed. "No," he said slowly.

"We need more intel."

Dean pushed himself up from the bed he'd just settled on and turned around. He picked up his leather jacket and put it on.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked.

"We need to go see that temple, remember? And we've got the name of the bar that all of the dead guys hung out at. We need to check them both, and you made a good point about doing it before dark."

"Wait, what?" Sam closed the laptop and stood. "You want to split up?"

Dean nodded quickly. "Yeah."

"No," Sam argued. "The youngest victim so far is twenty-five. The oldest is twenty-seven."

"So?"

"So, men your age are disappearing and turning up ripped to shreds by the lion form of an Egyptian goddess that we don't know how to kill. Splitting up is not a good idea."

"Aw, you're worried."

Dean patted Sam's cheek, a sarcastic smile on his face, and Sam batted his hand away in irritation. Dean dropped the playful attitude and became serious.

"I'll be fine, Sam. It's a small-town bar on a Friday afternoon. What's the worst that could happen?"

Sam blinked his eyes slowly and stared back at his brother. He didn't really expect an answer to that question, did he?

Dean sighed. "Just keep your eyes open. Nothing's gonna happen. Besides, those guys all disappeared from the diner on Saturday night. We'll go there together tomorrow, but we don't have enough time to check the bar and the temple out today unless we split up. We've got to move fast if we're going to stop it from killing again."

Sam had been shaking his head the entire time Dean talked.

"It's just a little recon. You take the temple, I'll take the bar, and we'll meet back here in three hours to compare notes, okay?"

"I don't like it, Dean," Sam protested.

"Call each other every fifteen minutes," Dean said. He picked their father's journal up from the table and held it up. "Keep in constant contact," he said as he slipped the journal into his jacket. "Anything looks suspicious, we report it."

"It's a bad idea." Sam knew he sounded like a broken record, but he couldn't shake the feeling that splitting up was a terrible plan. Bad things happened when they weren't together – Dean had to know that as well as Sam did.

"We need the information, Sam." Dean clapped him on the shoulder before he walked past him and toward the door. "We'll be fine."