Chapter 6

Harvelle's Roadhouse, Wayne, Nebraska

They'd moved to another table, Dean saw as he hit the bottom of the stairs and slowed down. A larger table closer to the bar and further from any of the other patrons. All six adults sitting around the table had serious, cold expressions on their faces now.

Dean slid the book onto the table beside his father's elbow and stood near his shoulder, listening to the conversation and hoping that he was inconspicuous enough not to be noticed.

"The place was hit hard, and more'n once," Bobby was saying, fingers tangling in the scrubby beard as he scratched at it absently.

"But the traps – and the wards," Ellen said, looking from him to Bill in confusion. "It was better protected than almost anywhere else."

"Wasn't demons doing it, hon," Bill said, his gaze going from her to Gil. "We think it was the government."

"What?" she exclaimed, staring at him. "Why?"

"The books they kept there have always been on the lists, Ellen," Gil said gently. "It was really only a matter of time before someone said something to the wrong person."

"Are they alright? Did you get them out?" she asked Bill.

"They got themselves out," Abely answered. "We met them at the store-house and took them to Jim's. They're fine, Ellen."

"That's something," she muttered. "If it was government intervention why are you all looking like someone died?"

Bobby glanced at Abely. "We don't think it was a slip that put them in the spotlight," he said, a little unwillingly. "There's a very high possibility, from what Emerson's said about the situation in the city at the moment, that the COG government itself may be controlled by demons."

Dean's eyes widened and he bit his lip to keep from saying anything.

"You said that demons weren't allowed to walk on this plane, only the half-breeds could act directly on humanity," John said slowly, looking at Bill.

"That was true for the last five thousand years," Bobby said heavily. "But something changed. You saw that demon, John, looking out of the eyes of a normal person. Possessing them."

"I –" John started to say, then hesitated, the blue eyes turning to molten yellow in his mind's eye again. "Maybe I was wrong?"

Abely shook his head. "No, what happened to your family, John, no half-breed could've done it. The old rules were only about influence, never allowing direct action."

His gaze slid to Dean and sharpened, and Dean felt his stomach drop as Bobby, Bill, Ellen and John became aware of him standing there, heads turning to look at him. He felt like an unwelcome bug at a picnic.

John looked down at the book by his arm and sighed. "Dean, could you check on Sammy, please?"

Nodding, Dean turned away from the table, brows pulling together as he went back over the last bit of the conversation. Nothing they'd done in school had covered demons. Caleb said they did some theory later on, but he'd more or less said the same things as Abely just had. Demons were not allowed out. Could not walk around. Could only whisper and seduce and tempt.

Watching his son cross the room, John rubbed a hand over his face tiredly then looked back at Bill. "Jim said it wasn't the first time, our family, wasn't the first time it'd happened."

"We didn't believe the reports we heard," Bill admitted, squeezing his wife's hand as it slid into his. "Didn't want to believe them, and had no means of verifying them. Jim's been doing the research on it, and Emerson. Maybe between them they can figure out what's going on, but the way those people in the city were behaving …" he trailed off, his eyes closing briefly.

John shook his head impatiently. "What does it mean? If they're walking around? What can we do about it?"

Gillette smiled fondly at him. "All about the action, John. The truth is, there may be nothing at all we can do about it, as you say. The Church, back when it had real power, had exorcism rituals, protective sigils, which Emerson was certainly using. But it takes so little for a demon to change a person's mind, even without possession, even without pain, just through its lies, that I don't see any way, short of full revolution, that you will be able to change what has happened to the people who have come into contact with them."

Ellen looked at the trickle of customers that were slowly filling the place now that afternoon was firmly established. "We need to move to the office for this conversation, gentlemen," she said quietly. "Bill, see if Rufus and Abe are still around, they need to hear about this too. Arrange it for nine."

She got to her feet, the sound of the chairs being scraped back loud over the wooden floor as the men at the table rose together with her, and she walked back to the bar, the wide smile on her face belying the feelings that were churning in her chest.

John watched her cross the room, flirting mildly with the men and complimenting the women on their attire, and shook his head slightly, catching Bill's eye.

"She's something to see, isn't she?" Bill grinned at him.

"And a half," John agreed readily.

"John, we'll eat with Moses tonight, leave the boys with his missus when we come back here," Abely said.

John nodded distractedly, looking around the room for his sons.

"Are we going?" Dean materialised next to his father's elbow and John looked down, brow creased as he wondered what his son might've heard.

"Tomorrow," he told him. "We'll stay with Moses and his family tonight."

Dean watched Moses and his father walk up the crooked, gravelled path to the road, and turn left, heading back up the hill to the roadhouse. Gas lamps threw warm yellow pools of light unevenly over the cobbled street, the big glass lanterns lit from the by-product gas of the generators that ran the town and the coke factory on the other side of the valley. Some poor schmuck had to light them at sundown and turn them off at sunrise and clean every single glass pane every two days, Caleb had told him, but it beat the candle lanterns in Blue Earth, and the pockets of deep-black night that lay in between them. Especially now.

He turned away from the stoop and closed the door, shooting home the iron bolts automatically as a triumphant shout came from the living room, followed by a fusillade of counter-arguments from the three other boys.

"You alright, Dean?" Abigail Karnak stopped in the hallway, wiping her hands on the voluminous apron tied around her waist and looking worriedly at him.

"Yes, ma'am," he said quickly, his smile reflexive as he sidled past her and turned into the living room. It was not the time to draw the attention of adults, he thought, slowing down and looking at the elaborate wind-up metal racetrack that Caleb, his brother and the Karnak boys were gathered around. The game was a farce, he thought, not for the first time, no skill or experience could help you win, not even winding up your horse till the springs creaked gave any more likelihood of winning the race than Sammy's weak-fisted efforts.

He walked to the other end of the room and dropped into the armchair by the window, twitching one edge of the curtain aside and staring at the shadowy street.

"I forfeit my prizes and my steed," Caleb said from the table a moment later, leaving behind a chorus of groans. Dean heard his footfalls over the floor.

"What's up?" the older boy asked him, leaning against the windowsill.

"Not here," Dean said in a low voice, flicking a glance over his shoulder at the three boys still sitting around the toy.

"Upstairs?" Caleb suggested, straightening up and walking out, Dean following.

Caleb's room, which for tonight, Dean was sharing, was in the attic, and they walked to the end of the hall, opening the narrow, panelled door next to the airing cupboard and climbing the steep stairs into the high-pitched gabled roofspace. Caleb lit the candle stick on the nightstand and settled himself cross-legged on his bed, looking quizzically at Dean as he sat on the other single bed.

"Well?"

"What have you been hearing about demons?" Dean asked, chewing the corner of his lower lip.

"Demons?" Caleb stared at him. "Just the myths. Why?"

"Uncle Jim told us that there's a demon hunting Dad," the younger boy said slowly, unsure of how much he should tell his friend, if anything at all. No one had specifically told him not to tell, but he knew that information like that, getting around, could cause a lot of problems, for his father and Abely, and possibly for others.

"Demons can't hunt people, Dean," Caleb said, shaking his head. "They're in a different dimension, all they can do is whisper through the cracks."

He looked at Dean's expression and felt a chill settle into his stomach. "Whatever Pastor Murphy's been drinking, tell him lay off it," he added, not liking that expression at all.

For a long moment the two boys looked at each other, then Dean sighed and nodded, his gaze cutting away. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Damned right, I'm right," Caleb said sharply, not feeling the rush of relief he'd expected. He didn't know the younger boy all that well, but he knew enough to know that Dean had backed off, not relinquished his ideas.

He felt a corkscrewing tension in his neck and gritted his teeth, the next words coming out of their own volition. "Fuck! Don't snowball me, Winchester, what do you know?"

Dean looked back at him. The older boy was scared, he could see that. Fighting it, but scared.

"When Abely came back, with Bill and Bobby, I overheard some of their conversation, in the saloon," he said, his face flickering with shadow as a thin draught trembled the flame of the candle. "They said that Emerson's shop was shut down by the government, but Bobby thought that maybe the demons were controlling the people who'd given the orders."

"Demons can't possess –" Caleb started to say then fell silent. "That was Kansas City, Dean, that's a long way from here. And there was a lot of talk about the way their government was running things, for years."

"But if a demon, or more than one, is out, what's to stop more from coming out?" Dean asked him, his voice thickening a little. "Bobby said that my dad saw a demon possessing someone. I don't know what he meant."

Sighing deeply, Caleb shook his head again, more slowly. "There's an old legend, Moses knows it. He told me that way back, demons and angels used to walk among us, here on our plane. They could take over people; possess their bodies if they had the person's consent. With demons, sometimes the consent wasn't consciously given. With the angels it always had to be spoken freely." He shrugged, seeing Dean's next question on the boy's face. "Then something happened – I don't remember exactly what, some big war or something – and all the demons and angels were shut back on their own planes, locked away and forbidden to come here." He gestured vaguely around the room. "They must've had a way to get through, sometimes, because there are half-breeds, human-demon or human-angel children, who live here and who try to persuade humanity to one side or the other."

"You think that's what my dad saw?" Dean frowned, thinking back over the conversation at the roadhouse. "Abely said no half-breed could've done what happened to my mother."

Caleb looked at him uncertainly. "I don't know what happened to your mother."

Dean bit his lip, wishing his words back suddenly. "I don't know what happened either, not really. She died in my brother's nursery, when he was six months old. There was a fire –" he stopped and shook his head. "Dad doesn't talk about it, not to me. I asked Uncle Jim and he just said that there was a demon hunting Dad."

"Are you worried it's going to come after you?"

"I don't know, maybe not me, but what if it comes after Dad?" Dean said, his gaze dropping. "I don't know anything about demons."

"Alright, here, pass me that pen," Caleb said, gesturing at the nightstand. "And the note paper."

Dean leaned across and picked up the pen and paper, getting up to carry the small ink pot to the other boy's bed.

"This," Caleb said, dipping the pen into the ink and drawing a circle on the paper, "is a protection symbol against demon possession."

"If demons aren't supposed to be able to –"

"I know," Caleb cut him off tightly. "Just shut up and watch, okay?"

He drew out the symbol from memory. They'd started studying the older myths this year. He hadn't seen the point in learning the wards for something that couldn't reach to this plane, but he'd memorised them anyway, wanting to prove himself to his foster-father if nothing else.

Dean looked at the symbol. "Is carrying that enough?"

"No," Caleb said, wiping off the pen and putting it and the ink pot back on the nightstand. "It needs to be deep in the skin, or cast into iron and worn to be of real use."

"Deep in the skin?"

"Tattooed." Caleb looked at him. "I ain't doing it, but if you're really worried, Max does tattoos, down the bottom of Mockingbird Lane. We could go in the morning."

"We're leaving tomorrow," Dean said worriedly.

"Maybe not that early," Caleb said, getting up from the bed. "Look, you paint that in blood, on your skin, or a door or the floor, that'll keep them away. There's supposed to be other stuff too but I haven't gotten that far yet."

"Where'm I supposed to get blood, Caleb?" Dean grated, staring at the drawing.

"Dwight's a butcher," the older boy suggested with a shrug. "He'd have it."

It was something, Dean acknowledged unwillingly. Not what he'd hoped for but a long way better than nothing at all.

"You boys gonna have seconds of pie?" Abigail's voice drifted up the stairs from the hall below them. They looked at each other and got up, Dean tucking the drawing into his shirt as Caleb blew out the candle.

The back room was next to Bill's office, a coal fire glowering on the tiled hearth pushing a steady heat into the room. John loosened his collar as the additional heat of the eight people squashed onto the long sofa and into the armchairs to either side made the room stifling.

Rufus leaned back in the chair, his expression shuttered over the glass he held. "KC had problems from the minute those mutton-headed book-haters got enough seats," he said.

"Yeah, well, they got bigger problems now," Bobby retorted, pushing his cap back and wiping his face.

"It's not just KC, Rufus," Abe said in a deep, soft voice. "The Children of God have opened churches and starting running for office in four other cities, including Lincoln and Des Moines, which are a lot closer to home. They're just getting started."

"'Children of God'," Gillette snorted into his brandy. "'Children of Ignorance' more to the point."

"They're gaining popularity because it's getting harder to get the coal to the cities and manufacturing has been forced to either close or move," Ellen said astringently to him. "People lose their jobs, they're looking for something to help them feed their families and COG has been more and more active in running charity shelters, feeding the poor, finding homes for families –"

"If they'd just read a book, they might get it through their thick skulls that the Germans were making diesel and gasoline from coal-gas since the 40's and we could be a lot –" Gillette pushed his glasses higher on his nose as he straightened up on the sofa, one arm waving and narrowly missing Lorena's glass.

"Enough," Bill said, pinning the inventor with a glare as he cut him off. "Not the core problem we're facing right now." He turned to Bobby. "Demons need consent to possess a person – how're they getting it with those anti-everything folks?"

"Got me," Bobby said, rubbing a finger over one brow. "But there must be a fair few things that'd be an irresistible temptation to them, on the sly."

"We can protect against a demon attack," Abely said, looking around the room at the hunters. "We can't do anything about a militia force sent on orders by a government lawfully elected into power." He turned to Bill and Ellen. "Lincoln's not that close, but what happens when they move into Norfolk? Or Sioux City, Bobby?"

"Abely's right," Lorena said. "We need to do something before their jurisdiction spreads to the communities. Here, and in Blue Earth, the majority of the town are hunters, but Sioux Falls and Humboldt, we're definitely the minority." She leaned forward on the sofa, her face shadowed by the lace veil. "There's something else. Since '72, witch-craft has been slowly growing, not just single operators, but covens, some of them run by two or three adepts. The last one I took out was in Rochester. They said the demons were here because the Devil was rising."

"Superstitious bullshit!" Rufus snorted, tossing back his whiskey. "Demons lie, Lorena, and they lie like rugs to witches."

"What can we do?" John asked, looking from the witch-hunter to Bobby, then to Abely. "The last time I was in KC was five years ago, and even then COG had more followers than the opposing party. Now, they're in power. And they have an army to back them up –"

"Which you can be sure is going to be increased in size with the demons calling the shots," Rufus added coldly. "Six weeks ago, we were down in Omaha. They got a party there too, not so big … yet … but they had a curfew on that town and Tatiana and Mikhail were already packing, looking to go north. Most of the smaller cities are walled now, since that outbreak. Wouldn't take much to hold the entire citizenry in them, for their own good, a'course."

Ellen looked around the room. She'd known almost all of the people here since she'd been a girl. She'd never seen their faces like this, pale with tightly-held down fear as the possible scenarios kept getting larger, rippling outward.

"We have to tell the Keeper," she said, her words dropping into a moment of silence and every hunter turning to look at her.

"No," Bobby grated. "Not until we got no other choices left."

"She'll know, hon," Bill said, glancing at Bobby dryly. "And Bobby's right, we have to do whatever we can first, before we ask for help."

"Still got all the traps," Moses said tersely. "Key of Solomon, the Dead Sea traps."

"Two'll get in and out easier than more," Abe said, nodding. "See if we can trap and get rid of them in vic's homes." He looked at Gil. "Gonna need some help with that, decoys and such to get in and out and something that'll speed up the exorcisms."

Gillette nodded eagerly. "I was just researching that –"

"Good, we'll be at your place tomorrow morning, Gil, to hear all about it," Abely cut him off, smiling at him to take the sting out. "John and I can hit Lincoln; Bobby and Moses'll take Des Moines and get some of the folks from Peggie's to give you a hand?" He lifted a brow at Bobby who nodded reluctantly. "Rufus and Abe take Omaha. Bill and Lorena, Kansas City." He looked around expectantly, waiting for any signs of dissent. There were none.

"It's a plan," Bill said, running his hand through his hair.

"Yeah, real excited to be a part of it," Rufus muttered under his breath. Abe shot him a look and he shrugged, getting to his feet. "We goin' be up at the crack of dawn, I'm hitting the hay now."

The hunters got up from their seats, and John stood stiffly, moving to stand beside Abely and Bill and looking at Ellen. "Sounds like I'll be heading out again, you sure it's alright to leave the boys here with you, Ellen?"

She smiled at him, a deep warmth lighting her sherry-coloured eyes. "They're no trouble, John," she told him. "I'm happy for them to stay a bit longer."

Dean heard the front door close and rolled from his bed to his feet, reaching out to the nightstand for Caleb's enhancers and settling them on his face as he crossed the dark attic and tip-toed down the stairs.

The upper hallway was dark, a faint light from the stairwell left on by Abigail when she went to bed. He moved soundlessly over the plush rugs that lined the hall and shifted to the wall side as he crept down the first flight of stairs.

"How early do you want be at Gil's?" he heard his father ask.

"Bobby'll be itchin' to be on the road in the mornin'," Moses answered, his voice little more than a deep rumble. "Get to Gil's at dawn, leave as soon as we can after, I guess."

"I'll have to get the boys to Ellen's before I go," John said as the two men moved down the downstairs to Moses' study.

"You and Abely'll have time to let 'em have their breakfast before you take them over and head out."

Dean couldn't hear his father's response, but he'd heard enough. He retraced his steps along the hall and slid the enhancers back over his nose as he climbed the narrow stair to the attic and returned to his bed.

"Whaddya doin', Dean?" Caleb rolled over and asked sleepily.

"Not going tomorrow," Dean whispered back, feeling his stomach tense at the realisation that his father was going somewhere, somewhere else without them. "We can get down to Max's early."

"Kay," Caleb mumbled his agreement and rolled back over.

Dean felt a shiver of something between fear and anticipation ripple through him. Caleb had said that the tattooing was painful. That wouldn't matter if he could protect his brother and father when it counted, he thought. He wondered how much an iron talisman would cost. He had a feeling his father wouldn't say much if he got a tattoo but he'd kick up some if he got Sammy done as well.

June 27, 1988

"There you are!" Abigail cried out as she saw the boys jump back over the stone wall from the kitchen window. Dean looked up and saw her face, the expression an exasperated scowl and he elbowed Caleb who'd dropped into a skulking crouch.

"Forget it, she's seen us," he told the older boy, hurrying in a straight line through the dew-soaked long grass toward the back door.

"Dammit." Caleb lengthened his stride to catch up, arriving at the stone steps together.

"Your dad said to make sure you and Sammy had your breakfast before he got back," Abigail said crossly as they entered through the half-glass door between the mud room and kitchen. "Sammy's had his an hour ago, and you two choose this morning to lark off and disappear?"

"Sorry, Abigail," Caleb said contritely. "We were … uh …"

"It was my fault, Mrs Karnak. I asked Caleb if we could look for night jessamine," Dean said, not looking at Caleb as he dropped into the chair at the big pine table. Abigail set the chafing dishes in front of them and he picked up his fork. "Supposed to be some in the woods behind Mockingbird Lane, and I wanted to see it before we went – Mr Craven's been teaching us about it for herbology."

"Well," Abigail said, a little mollified by the explanation. "Your daddy's going out with Abely today, down to Lincoln to take care of some business, so he's going to take you back up to Ellen's 'til he gets back."

"Oh." Caleb said, his face screwing up as Dean's toe found his shin under the table. "That's, uh, sudden, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know, dear," she said comfortably, wiping her hands as she turned back to the table. "Eat up, they'll be back soon."

Dean schooled his features to blankness as he leaned forward to reach for the eggs and the dressing over his chest pulled. He drew in a slow breath and looked at Caleb. The older boy pushed the dish of scrambled eggs toward him and he spooned out a heap onto his plate with a small nod of thanks.

John lifted a brow as Abely knocked on the roadhouse door and Ellen lifted the curtain to look at them before she opened it.

"What's going on?" he asked as they walked in, Dean and Sammy following silently behind them.

"Hunter business means we'll stay closed until you've gone," Ellen said briskly, gesturing to the side of the room where the smaller tables had been arranged to make two long ones. "Whatever extra gear you need should be on those."

She glanced over her shoulder at the boys. "Dean, take Sammy to the office, please. Jo's in there with Frances and Morgan."

He nodded and grabbed his brother's hand, weaving them both through the silent and stony-faced hunters to the back hallway.

John watched them go, hoping he was doing the right thing. He'd hardly seen them in the last sixteen days.

"John," Abely said, dragging his attention back to what they were doing. "You'll need holy water, the consecrated shells, salt; six of those bags, yeah–" the older hunter confirmed with a sharp nod as John's hand reached for a pile of leather bags marked with sigils. "–those."

Looking over the long table, John began to gather the necessary tools for demon hunting, putting the smaller items the pouch hanging from his belt, the large ones into the black leather bag that held the rest of his weapons.

"Who's the Keeper?" he asked Abely in a low voice as they moved along the table.

Abely lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. "Not the time or place, when we're on the road, I'll tell you what I know about it."

"Is it a secret?" John glanced around them, the hunters moving along the table on the other side showing no interest in their conversation.

"Not really," Abely said, his expression a little pained. "Just not – it's order business."

The order that Emerson belonged to, John thought, belatedly realising he didn't much about that either. Jim had told him a little but not the whole story. He wondered if Abely would fill in the great, gaping holes on the drive south.

"Did Jim learn anything more about –"

The gunshot and the crash of the door falling inwards into the room had every hunter swinging around, weapons raised as they stared at the man who stumbled disjointedly through the opening.

John's eyes narrowed. It was Lucius, he thought, recognising the portly baker when his head turned toward them, brown eyes bright in the red-cheeked, round face. But somehow, it wasn't.

The baker walked in jerks and fits, as if he'd forgotten how to use his arms and legs, swinging around slightly from side to side with each stride and staggering over the debris of the broken door, glass and timber crunching under his soft-soled boots, leaving a trail of blood behind him as the shards cut through into his feet.

"Ha! Ha ha! Hunters!" Lucius shouted in a reedy, tenor voice. "Waiter! There's a hunter in my soup!"

"He's possessed," Bill said flatly from beside the bar, lifting the shotgun in his hands as Lucius' head turned grotesquely a hundred and eighty degrees to look at him. In the silence of the room the cracking of the spine was clear and loud.

"Gil? You ready?" Abely said, flicking a glance to his right at the tall man.

"We need a mirror," Gillette replied quietly. "A big one."

"No, you don't!" the demon cried and Lucius' face stretched out impossibly, his jaw dislocating and falling onto his chest, his skin rippling and becoming shiny and darker.

"Get it into the trap!" Bill shouted, firing the shotgun from his hip, the iron pellets hitting Lucius' chest in a tight cluster.

Sammy and Jo appeared in the open door that led to the offices and stopped, staring at the man in front of him as he turned to look at them.