Part Four
Singer Auto Salvage didn't look much like the kind of place a demon expert would haunt. Huge stacks of crushed, slightly crushed and just plain old crushed cars could be seen from the road turning into the yard.
An old, weathered house, obviously once made for a family, was hidden in the mountains of junk. Harry watched the towers of cars sway precariously as he slinked up the driveway. If he was taken out by an unstable pile of rubbish well, heads would roll.
A huge dog lay on the bonnet of an old rust-bucket, chained and looking deceptively serene. Harry eased out of his car and crept towards the stairs, keeping his eye on the dog the whole time. It just drooled at him silently.
The silence of the place unnerved him the most, he thought as he knocked briskly on the door. Like something big was stirring just out of Harry's sight that left him feeling vulnerable and unprepared.
"Hello?" he called, startling the dog on the car. "I'm looking for Bobby Singer- is anyone here?"
The silence continued to greet him.
"Well, isn't this just fantastic?" Harry muttered to himself, dragging a hand through his hair and turning to look around the yard. It looked like the end of the world out here; as if civilization had dropped off miles back but for some reason Bobby Singer didn't decide to stop until this very spot.
The dog stayed sprawled over the hood of the car as the ex-wizard stomped down the stairs and wandered towards the tall stacks of wrecked cars. Perhaps the man was in the yard and couldn't hear him?
Curious and somewhat impatient, Harry set off towards the small city of junk in Bobby Singer's yard, wary of the more unstable looking piles. He paused in the obvious walkway between the stacks and took a moment to actually look at Ellen's demonology expert's other hobby.
Despite his initial misgiving on the place, the salvage yard lit up a bit of excitement in Harry. Caleb had taught him more than enough about car care for him to be able to fix his only mode of transportation in a pinch but the science behind it had always quirked his interest.
There just never seemed to be any time between training and hunting and keeping his magic from blowing stuff up to actually learn the trade.
It was like putting a kid in a candy store.
Before long Harry has abandoned his fruitless search, crawling over a crushed stack of what looked like a red Prius and three black BMWs to poke at the remains of a dull red Sunbird.
It looked to be about the same year as his own, the windshield and windows nothing but jagged edges in their metal frames. Harry wanted to pop the trunk, get a peek at her insides and compare but the window was nothing but a big gaping mouth of glass teeth just waiting to swallow him whole.
With a precarious balance and a long sigh, the hunter tugged on the driver's side door. It didn't budge. Shifting his feet for another go at it, Harry put a bit more force behind the pull and found himself six feet below the Sunbird, the breath knocked from his lungs.
The Sunbird swayed on the top of the pile, creaking and groaning ominously. Harry's eyes widened as the old car began to slide off the pile and down towards his uncomfortable spot on the ground.
Chest aching from the fall and his bruises from the hunt, the small hunter rolled frantically out of the way, curling into a ball as the car hit the ground with a thump and threw a cloud of dust into the air.
Against his will, Harry's lungs sucked up a long breath of dust. He lay on the ground and coughed until his eyes watered, right up until the sound of a shotgun cocking echoed against the car metal and a gruff voice asked "Who the hell are you?"
Harry squinted up at the blurry shadow, feeling like a complete and utter moron. "Harry." He choked out as the man in the pig hat scowled darkly at him. "Ellen sent me."
The man- who had to be Bobby Singer- relaxed marginally but kept his gun firmly in Harry's direction.
"That's nice boy but it sure as hell don't explain why you're playing dominoes with my work."
Harry pulled himself to his feet slowly, keeping his hands spread out before him. He was going to hurt come tomorrow morning.
"I was looking for a demon specialist and Ellen pointed me in your direction. Can- do you mind not pointing that gun at me?"
Bobby snorted, and motioned Harry back towards the house with the gun instead. "How about you shut up and do what I say for a moment, idjit."
The former wizard shuffled off towards the house, remembering Ellen's advice to simply follow Bobby's word. "Of course."
The dog was still perched in its spot on car, watching as his owner corralled Harry up the stairs and into the old house like a lost sheep. The chaos outside was mirrored inside.
Books and scrapes of paper and napkins and in one case what looked like an actual scroll littered every available surface. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink and everything seemed to be covered with a very fine layer of dust but this, this was Bobby Singer's home.
The man in question didn't stop, sternly poking Harry in the back to get him moving again. "Through there."
They walked right under a rather interesting looking symbol that covered a big chunk of the ceiling before Bobby made him sit at the kitchen table with his hands flat against the wood.
He kept one hand on the shotgun as he fooled around with something under the kitchen counter, pulling out- much to Harry's surprise- a shot glass and a flask. Bobby poured up a hefty shot and plopped it down in front of his guest with a challenging look.
"Drink up, boy."
Harry didn't touch the damn thing.
"What is it?" He asked icily, well aware that some of the most deadly poisons and truth serums in the Wizarding World looked as innocent as a glass of water.
"Shot of holy water. Make sure it's you in there." The older hunter said with an eye roll. Harry scoffed at him and shook his head. He wasn't falling for that.
"You first."
Something like surprise and maybe a little bit of respect flashed across Bobby's face as he downed the shot he'd put down in front of Harry. The younger hunter studied the man's face intently, looking for any sign of pain or deception and found nothing.
Bobby poured another shot and set it down with an expectant look in his eyes.
Harry sighed and grabbed the glass gingerly. "For the record, I know that doesn't mean you haven't gypped it with something but I'm taking the chance anyway."
Bobby laughed as Harry tipped his head back and downed the shot quickly. It tasted no different from tap water but the smaller hunter swallowed licked his mouth clean of the taste anyway.
If he was going to die of poisoning it damn well was going to be a quick death.
Bobby put the shotgun down and reached for his hat, rubbing his forehead in thought.
"Well, nothing's riding you. What's Ellen want now?"
Harry relaxed as the gun was finally put down- and what was with him and nearly getting killed lately?- and rubbed his face tiredly. "I need your help. I'm looking for information on a demon, a very specific demon."
"How specific?" Bobby asked, already heading over to a large, overstuffed bookcase.
"I've got everything but the Demonic Telephone Book here."
"A yellow-eyed demon." Harry admitted, following the older hunter over to gaze at the books. "Old….." The words of the demon from Hill City came to mind suddenly
'Mommy burned up for you…' "Likes to causes fires."
Bobby stopped looking at the spines of his books to stare at Harry, his bushy eyebrows rising to meet the brim of his cap. He spoke slowly and looked somewhat pale. "What do you want with that thing?"
"What do you know about it?" Harry countered, trying to keep himself from shaking the information out of the older man. "I've already found its name- Azazel."
Bobby played with the brim of his hat, a scowl set firmly in place now that Harry had admitted to knowing something about what he was trying to do.
"Boy, you're not a day over eighteen by my eye- better hunters than yourself have being after this demon for years."
Harry drew back at that, surprised. "Other hunters? What other hunters?"
Bobby's angry expression didn't change- Harry had the feeling the other man liked it like that- but his sigh was resigned.
"Only other hunter I know said to be looking for a yellow-eyed fire demon is John Winchester."
He said the name like it was supposed to mean something to Harry. The younger hunter waited, his eyebrow quirked in an unimpressed manner. "Who is John Winchester?"
Bobby seemed…..pole-axed if anything by his limited knowledge on the other hunters. Caleb kept him away from a lot of them, muttering something about crazy, religious yahoos and close-minded sons of a bitches whenever Harry asked, that the smaller hunter just stopped questioning him.
"Ellen never told you 'bout John when you asked her for a demon expert?"
The former wizard shrugged. "I didn't exactly tell her what I was looking for." He swallowed a slightly nervous feeling that something big was about to happen.
"Will you- can- do you know how I could get in touch with him?"
Bobby made another angry-sounding noise in the back of his throat and turned away sharply. "Yer damned right I could, the stubborn asshole. Yer best not tangling with him to be honest."
Harry struggled to come up with a good reason for needing to contact the apparently well-known hunter. Well, besides the sinking suspicion that this demon had had a hand in murdering his family nearly twenty-three years ago.
"I have to find him. Please."
Bobby sighed, taking off his hat to rub at his hair tiredly- a nervous habit.
"I can get you his last contact number, but God help you after that. John Winchester couldn't get along with the devil himself."
Harry nodded, quietly thinking about Snape and Malfoy and the Dursleys. He grew up dealing with prickly little blighters. He could handle John Winchester. Easy.
At least he hoped.
Harry took the number and headed over to South Carolina to dispatch of a ghost that had been chopping up hikers in a park there. John Winchester and his demon hunt would have to wait.
Caleb left damn near twenty voice messages on his mobile before the suddenly solo hunter had to call Ellen and get her to relay a message for him. Caleb didn't stop calling- it was Caleb after all- but he did stop expecting an answer as long as Harry kept letting Ellen know he was still alive.
It was a week later, with a sinking heart, that Harry heard the message John the hunter had left for the world.
"….call my son Dean. He can help."
Harry jotted down the number with a frown. Wasn't that just his luck? Unless the man was hunting down Azazel with his son- something he could see if it had attacked his family as well- Harry was out of options.
He ordered himself some pizza and dialed Dean Winchester's mobile.
Three rings went in before a deep, southern-tinted voice picked up with a lazy "'lo?"
Harry gripped his mobile tightly. "Mr. Winchester?"
"One of a few, yeah? Who's this?"
A wave of grief and homesickness overcame the one-wizard at the familiar teasing. God, it was like talking to Fred or George again.
"I'm looking for John Winchester." Harry explained, ignoring the last question. The man on the line snorted bitterly.
"You and me both, man."
Harry frowned in disappointment and confusion. "…oh? Are you Dean then? His mobile said to call your number if I needed help but-"
"You have a problem that needs killing?" There was no doubt about it; Dean was extremely excited about hunting. Harry smiled slightly. He felt bad about disappointing him.
"No, no I need to talk to your father. It's about what he's hunting." Harry swallowed his rage. "I'm hunting it too."
Another voice murmured in the background, and Dean turned the phone away from his mouth to answer it. Another hunter it sounded like, concern and suspicion easily heard between the two.
"How do you know our father?" Dean snapped out, suddenly untrusting and hard. Harry sighed. He sucked at this type of thing. Everything was easier when he was a wizard and Voldemort just wanted to kill him and wasn't that sad?
"I don't know your father but Bobby said if anyone knew about this demon it was John Winchester-"
"Bobby? Bobby Singer?" Dean interrupted, rustling around noisily. "Sammy, he said Bobby told him the number."
"Sammy?!" Slipped out between Harry's lips before he could stop it. The voices on the other side stopped.
"Bobby didn't tell you about Sammy?" Dean asked him sharply. The once wizard shrugged until he realized no one could see him.
"He didn't tell me about you either. Just that your father could help and that John was a stubborn son of a bitch. He warned me that he's…. difficult to get on with." Harry sighed deeply, hoping he hadn't offended the other man by cursing on his father. "What, is Sammy your sister or something?"
Dean laughed loudly in his ear, great peals of laughter as he repeated 'Sammy' and 'sister' over and over again. It sounded like the phone was wrestled away from him, as the laughter grew fainter and another man's voice came on the line.
"It's Sam. Dean is my brother, the jerk. Where are you calling from?"
Harry blushed at his mistake- Sam sounded very manly and damn, he hoped he didn't get punched if he ever met up with the Winchester siblings.
"South Carolina. I just finished a hunt in Georgetown."
Sam made an acknowledging noise. "Huh- Dean scratch South C off the list. Ghost's been dealt with."
Dean snatched the mobile back from his brother if Sam's affronted squawk was any indication before he panted softly into the phone. "Dude, we have got to meet up. Give a couple of days to get back to you?"
They were going to check him out. Harry knew it was the logical thing to do- maybe they had a way of getting in touch with their father.
"Alright. I'm staying at a motel in town. Call me back with this number."
Dean swore, looking around for a pen before demanding Sam hand over his mobile.
"Got it. See you in a couple, man."
He hung up before Harry could reply. He stared down at his phone- now all he could do was wait.
Two days later, Sam left a message on his voice mail
"We'll meet you in Tuscaloosa. In Alabama." Someone- most likely Dean- whispered excitedly at Sam who huffed into his mobile. "Dean says there's a- a what? - Oh my God. There's a….bar there called Centerfolds. Meet us there in a week, at six."
As Sam went to hang up, Harry heard him exclaim, "Dean, I'm going to kill you-" before the mobile clicked shut.
He laughed the whole way to Alabama.
