A/N As always, my thanks go out to Adara-chan, who has not only caught my mistakes and suggested improvements, but also cheered me up and motivated me these past few weeks!
Sam and Dean arrived at the hospital ward just in time to see the two patients being wheeled toward the elevator. Callie and Marina were not far behind, chatting amicably with the hospital staff until they saw the brothers. Dean quickened his pace when he saw the group hurry toward the elevator. He was just able to stick his arm through the door as it closed.
"Looks like the patron saint of getting-the-elevator-door-closed-on-time took the day off," Dean observed smugly when the doors reopened to reveal the women. "Where's Shana?"
"She's not here," answered Callie.
"Yes, I can see that. Now, where is she?" he asked again, stepping onto the elevator and holding the door open for his brother.
As soon as Sam stepped onto the elevator, the overload alarm started ringing. Dean bit back a snide comment about his giant of a brother.
"Looks like it's too many people. Maybe we can meet you downstairs," suggested Marina.
"Oh, I don't think so," replied Dean. The alarm quieted as Sam retreated to the hallway, but Dean continued to stare down the group. He wasn't leaving them until he got an answer.
"She's downstairs. I'll take you." Callie joined Sam outside the elevator doors. "I'll meet you guys by the entrance," she promised her friends.
Dean raised his eyebrows at the sudden change of heart. There must be some reason that she didn't want them in the elevator with the other students, something important enough to trump her apparent need to thwart their investigation. He waited for the elevator to start its descent before speaking. "They don't know Lisa's dead, do they?"
"No. Shana didn't want to scare them. She's going to tell them back at the dorm." She pushed the button for the next elevator, and stared at the doors.
"Don't the Ten Commandments have something to say about lying?" Dean needled.
"Not exactly, no."
"Are you sure?" Dean pressed, grinning. "I distinctly remember-"
"Well, your distinct recollection is wrong," she snapped, turning around to face them. "You two have been dishonest and evasive since you've gotten here. You're scaring people."
"They should be scared!" Dean retorted. "Something's hurting people, and it's already killed one of you. Unless you want it to keep killing, you need to get off your high horse and let us do our job."
"Your job? What job is that?"
"Saving people like you, who are too stubborn and self righteous to know that they're being saved."
"Callie-" Sam started, but whatever conciliatory comment he was about to make was cut off when he saw the passengers in the elevator that had just arrived. The three rode in silence until the others alighted.
"So, what do you think is going on, then?" Callie finally asked.
Sam broke in before his brother could harangue the woman further. "You know all of the prayer requests that have been answered recently? We think there's something else answering them. We think that there's a coven in your dorm."
"A coven? As in Wiccans?"
"If these Wiccans have pledged to serve a demon, then yes," Dean answered.
Callie's mouth opened, then closed without speaking. They arrived in the basement, and had made it halfway down the corridor before she finally replied. "Okay, let's say I humor you. If there's really a coven, then what's your plan? You want to reenact the Spanish Inquisition? You think Shana's going to help you?"
"Actually," Sam answered tentatively, "we think Shana's been possessed by the demon. We need to exorcise it."
"You think Shana's been possessed by a demon," she repeated flatly.
"I know it's hard to believe, but we've found some pretty hard evidence that she has."
"So, you two want to perform the exorcism? Just pull out the Rituale Romanum and start reading?"
"Actually, yeah," Sam answered, a little surprised at how well Callie seemed to be taking everything.
Callie nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, let's do it. You guys go to confession, and I'll get the holy water. I guess we just need a doctor at this point, right?" Sam stared at her until he realized that she was mocking them. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.
"Shana's not possessed. Possessed people blaspheme and speak in strange languages. They stay away from anything holy. Shana spends half her time around relics."
When they reached the morgue door, Sam bent down to scratch at something on the handle. Sulfur.
The demon had definitely touched the handle.
"Well, not all demons are the projectile vomiting kind. This one's a little more subtle."
Callie bent over to see what Sam was scratching at, then opened the door to the morgue. She took half a step inside and froze. Dean pushed past her to enter the room, which was in a state of total disarray. The body of the morgue attendant lay on the floor, its head twisted at an unnatural angle. The naked corpse of a young woman was crumpled a few feet away. He bent over her.
"That's Lisa," Callie stated. "Oh, my God, I have to get Mandy!" Sam grabbed her arm, trying to calm her, but she shook it off and sprinted down the hallway.
Dean looked up from where he was inspecting the bodies. "Go chase after your new girlfriend. I'll look around here." He surveyed the strewn papers and broken equipment on the floor. "The demon's pretty subtle, but I think it may have left some traces of its passing."
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Sam ran down the hallway to where Callie was waiting beside the elevator. "Callie, I know it's a lot to take in, but believe me, there are ways you can protect yourself against this. Dean and I have been doing this for a long time."
"I know," Callie nodded, obviously paying no attention to his words. "I have to get to Mandy."
The doors opened, and Sam followed Callie inside. "Let us go back with you. We can show you how to protect yourselves while we hunt this thing."
Callie nodded distractedly as Sam spoke. She didn't look at him as she exited the elevator and rejoined her friends near the entrance to the hospital. By the time she greeted them, her face showed no signs what she had just seen.
"You guys ready to go?" she asked cheerfully.
"Yeah, we're all checked out," replied Jean, who then turned to look at Sam. "Did you have more questions?"
Sam faltered, unsure whether to perpetuate the ruse and a little confused by Callie's recovery. "Um, no, not really." He pulled Callie to the side. "I really think that Dean and I should go with you. After what happened downstairs..."
Marina looked up at their conversation. "I think they should come, too. Sam can go with you guys, and I'll wait for Dean and tell him what's going on. Oh, and Sam?" The blond approached Sam, smiling sweetly. "I told Mandy and Jean about your research project, the one about the lightning? We all agree that it wasn't very nice of you to lie, but we're happy to help you with anything you might want to know."
She reached up and put her hand on his shoulder, standing on tip toes so that her lips could reach his ear. "You can thank me later," she whispered. "I'll see you back at the dorm." His skin prickled as she let her hand graze his arm. He willed his body not to respond, and was able to pull himself together in time to see the annoyance on Callie's face.
Marina flashed a self-satisfied smile in response.
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Dean tried to concentrate on the road while Marina's hand "accidentally" brushed against his thigh for the fourth time. He needed to get back to Sam and the other girls as soon as possible, especially since he had almost all the weapons in the truck. Part of him, however, wanted nothing more than to pull the Impala to the side of the road and see what else Marina would be willing to brush up against.
He shook himself away from that thought. There was fun, and there was interfering with the case. This was definitely moving into interfering-with-the-case territory.
He set his mind to reviewing the facts of said case. He had left the morgue with more questions than he had answers. There was no doubt in his mind that Lisa had been possessed before she died. From what Dean had seen on the coroner's report, the demon had left the calling card of its kind: a signature blend of massive brain trauma, numerous internal injuries, and all sorts of problems that the human body was able to withstand when possessed but quickly died from after an exorcism.
The question was why the demon wanted to possess her at all. Why go halfway across the country, possess a girl, bring her back, then dump her? The most likely explanation was Sam's "errand" theory. Lisa could have been the only one with access to what the demon wanted. It would have left her after getting what it was after. Or after realizing that she couldn't help. Dean hoped it was the latter.
Of course, this led to the most disturbing puzzle: what the demon was trying to get its hands on. Sam hadn't mentioned anything particular in his research, but Dean knew from experience that these sorts of places didn't often advertise the cursed objects they held. Hell, Pastor Jim himself had kept some doozies in his church basement.
Dean started as he remembered Callie mentioning that Shana spent half her time around holy relics. He turned to the woman beside him, the woman whose hand was now resting on his thigh. "Your friend Shana, has she been asking any questions about old things in the college?"
"Why?" Marina asked, drawing her hand up his leg as she shifted to innocently smile up at him.
The car swerved sharply as Dean jumped at her touch. He grabbed her hand and pulled it away from him, forcing a smile in return. "Just...has she?" he asked tightly.
If Marina was offended, she didn't let on. She also seemed to take the hint and back off on the touchy-feely. "Um, I don't think so. If anybody had any questions, they'd probably be asking her. She's kind of the expert at old stuff."
"What do you mean?"
"She knows all about those sorts of things. The college got some shipment of lots of stuff from churches that were closed or torn down or something last year. Shana's helping them to sort it all out. That's the only reason she's here. She's not even studying nursing. She's, like, a graduate student in math or engineering or something like that."
"Is she the only one working there?"
"No, a lot of girls in the dorm were helping her."
"Like Mandy and Lisa?"
"Yeah. Why?"
Dean ground his teeth together. This should have come up in their research. "Whatever killed Lisa is probably looking for something in that shipment."
"What do you think it's looking for?"
"I don't know yet," answered Dean, his knuckles white around the steering wheel as the car accelerated. "Anyone who's been helping Shana could be a target, though. How many girls were helping?"
"Mainly just me and Callie. I guess maybe ten or so other people, if you include Lisa and Mandy."
Dean pulled into the parking lot of the college, finding a spot close enough to the dorm entrance that it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass to lug the rock salt inside. "Okay, you're going to need to round up everyone who's worked with those relics and get them in a room together. We can keep you safe until we're able to destroy whatever's after you." He got out of the car and went around to the trunk. He put the smaller things into a duffel, and then started for the rock salt.
Marina followed him. "What is that?"
"Salt."
"We already have some in the dorm."
"We're not making French fries, sweetheart. We're going to need a lot."
"No, we have a lot. We sometimes sprinkle it on the floor. It's a sacramental, like holy water."
"You sprinkle salt on the floor?"
"Not normal salt, blessed salt. It's supposed to keep evil away."
Dean grunted in surprise. He hadn't seen that one coming. It could be another reason that the demon kept jumping bodies. If the girls were sprinkling salt and holy water all over everything, the campus wouldn't exactly be a demon Shangri-la. He slammed the trunk shut and turned back to Marina.
"So, how much salt did you say that you have?"
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Sam gaped at the shelves in front of him. There was enough salt to line the exterior doors and windows several times over, and still have plenty for all the interior doors.
"I don't get it. Why do we need so much? Why can't we just sprinkle it like normal?" asked Mandy.
"It's safer this way," replied Sam. He glanced back at the the girls waiting outside the storage room door. He didn't know how, but Callie had convinced the other two that sitting in a room lined with salt would be the best way to spend the evening. Callie hadn't taken much convincing herself, not after what she had seen at the hospital.
By the time the four had started laying down the salt lines, Dean was walking in the door. He threw Sam a can of spray paint from the bag as he surveyed the room. "You think we got room for a dozen in here?" he asked.
Sam glanced around. It would be a tight squeeze, but they could do it. "You brought company?"
"Yeah, Marina's rounding them up." Dean pulled his brother out of earshot of the three women. "Looks like our friend Shana's been shopping around for some souvenirs from the old days. Some of the girls here have been helping her. I'm betting they're the targets."
"Coven?" asked Sam.
"Maybe some of them. But Lisa and Mandy were on the list. Callie and Marina, too." He shook his head. "I don't know how many of them are in on it. Some of them have been pretty damn lucky these past few months. I should stay here and keep an eye on them while you exorcise the demon."
"What? No!" Sam protested.
"C'mon Sam," Dean wheedled. "You know you've totally got it memorized. I can barely make it through the first two lines."
"Dude, I'm not going to take all the crappy jobs just because you can't get your ADD under control. Besides, you got to do the interviews yesterday."
"This isn't an interview," Dean pointed out smugly.
Sam glared at his brother. Why did Dean always have to try to weasel out of everything? "Mandy, what's your favorite color?" he asked loudly.
Mandy looked up, confused. "Uh, yellow?"
Sam turned back to his brother and smiled triumphantly. "Now it's an interview."
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"Now it's an interview," Dean mimicked in his best prissy Sam impression as he sat in the Impala studying the sheet of Latin in his hands. He imagined his brother alone with the twelve women, refusing to enjoy himself. Of course, the prude with the mad Latin skills would be inside with the girls while Dean was stuck in a parking lot puzzling out foreign words smudged by holy water.
Headlights temporarily blinded Dean as a car turned into the lot. Dean put the paper into his jacket pocket and grabbed the shot gun and holy water from the passenger's seat. Sure enough, he glimpsed Shana behind the wheel as the sedan passed. Funny, he'd never fingered the Geo Prizm as a demon friendly vehicle.
He got out of the car and slipped toward the woman. He was halfway there when she turned and spotted him. If the gun bothered her, Shana didn't let on. But then again, Dean could turn her into Swiss cheese, and her only problem would be deciding on her next victim. She eyed the jug of holy water at Dean's feet before meeting his stare.
"Thirsty and homicidal. That's a winning combination, there."
"Oh, the gun's just for slowing you down," Dean corrected. "Rock salt. Stings like a bitch."
"Just let me go home."
"Believe me, sweetheart, there's nothing I want more right now than to send you home." He grinned, leveling the shotgun at her. "And this is the place where wishes come true, isn't it?"
Shana took a step forward, her eyes trained on the gun. "I take it you're not a fan of miracles? One of those 'God is not a vending machine' types?"
"Lisa Gallagher didn't pay you in quarters, did she?"
"I didn't do anything to Lisa." Shana continued her advance on Dean. "She was dead by the time I got to her."
"Oh, and I bet that just broke your tender little heart, didn't it? Sorry, sweetheart, I'm not buying it."
"You think because I didn't sneak off to a crossroads to trade over my soul, I wanted her to die?" She was close enough now that Dean could see the corners of her mouth turn slightly at his sharp intake of breath. "Yeah, word gets around. You really shouldn't project your poor communication skills onto others."
She took another step forward, and Dean decided that she had come far enough. He pulled the trigger on the shot gun, but the salt flew into empty space as the woman darted toward his right side, her own right hand sweeping the gun to his left. Dean tried an elbow strike to her face, but found himself lurching sideways and down as he struggled to hold onto the gun that Shana was now angling toward the ground. The gun twisted again, and Dean was propelled backward off the asphalt into the grass.
He let go rather than take the fall and break his arm. He came up quickly, before Shana could point the gun at him. The rock salt wouldn't kill him, but like he had said, it would sting like a bitch. Grabbing the barrel over Shana's hands, he turned the tables on the woman, using her fingers to lead the rest of her body where he wanted it to go. She stumbled a few steps into a small pile of leaves, and Dean felt the sickening crunch of bones breaking beneath his fingers as she refused to succumb any further to the joint lock.
"Small joint manipulation on someone you outweigh by half. Not very bright, are you?" she taunted.
He twisted the gun from her broken hands, then fell back as her elbow collided with his sternum. "Maybe not, but I got the long range weapon, bitch." He trained the gun on her again.
Shana closed her eyes breathed deeply. Dry leaves rustled as the wind started to pick up around them. She stretched her fingers slowly, and they popped and clicked as the bones realigned and reknit themselves. She opened her eyes again and leveled her gaze at Dean. "This is getting ridiculous."
Dean grinned through the pain in his jaw. "You know what's really ridiculous is how long it took me to get enough leaves to cover that thing up." He pointed to the bit of paint revealed by the fluttering leaves, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the exorcism ritual.
The wind picked up, whistling through the trees, and the leaves below Shana's feet were whisked away to reveal the devil's trap below her. She smiled slowly and looked up at Dean with undisguised amusement.
"Yeah, not too bright at all."
Dean ignored her, concentrating on reading the Latin words. The wind was making it hard to keep the paper still enough to read, and he was afraid that it would be blown away completely. He cursed himself for not memorizing the ritual earlier. And for letting his brother talk him into facing the demon while Sam wasted the opportunities afforded by being stuck in a room with twelve girls.
Dean looked up to see Shana laughing softly at the edge of the circle. "Not exactly the standard pronunciation, is it?" she asked.
"Good enough to send your ass back to hell."
Shana cocked her head thoughtfully, sucking air through her teeth. "You really shouldn't use words you don't understand," she said finally, stepping out of the devil's trap.
Dean backpedaled, grabbing the gun as the exorcism ritual flew away. He pointed it at the woman and pulled the trigger. There was a dry click from the weapon. Dean tried again, and again it didn't shoot. Shana took another step forward and grabbed the barrel, twisting it from his grip. She was much stronger now, and Dean let go of the useless weapon before she could use it against him as before.
He made a break for the holy water. Shana tossed the gun to the side and followed him. He managed to get to the jug, but the water he threw was blown back into his own body by the gale force winds. Shana grabbed the front of his shirt and drew his face toward hers. Her hair lashed at his cheeks. He moved to break her grip, but she held him tightly, her eyes staring him down from a few inches away.
"Dean Winchester, take your brother and go. This war doesn't need you."
Dean's arms were pinned uselessly to his sides. He grinned back into Shana's face. "But honey, we were just getting to know each other."
Shana narrowed her eyes, but just as soon they widened again as she noticed something to her right. Dean glanced over and had just enough time see a large branch flying toward him before it knocked him to the ground unconscious.
