Chapter Seven

Missouri Mosely stood in the rain under a wide colorful umbrella watching the burning wreck that had once been a home fall in on itself. Little Micheal and his father had been whisked away by the paramedics hours ago but their heartbreak and pain still hung over her and this place as if it were one of the dark clouds overhead weeping tears upon them.

Tired firemen were dousing what was left of the home with their hoses, doing their best to keep the fire contained until it burnt itself out. From the look of things it would be hours still until they would be able to leave even with the rain.

A couple of police officers were on the scene keeping curious onlookers in check and fielding questions with the local media. Why on earth couldn't those vultures just leave well enough alone? It really did take all kinds…

Of course none of these things were the reason she had come here.

Neither was the familiar evil that she could still feel surrounding this place… still out there somewhere...

Nor even the strong positive force that she knew so well that had somehow become meshed with it.

No, she was here to get as much information as she could. Her kind of information…the psychic kind. Then she had to get home as quickly as she could.

She was waiting for someone… two someone's actually. Sam and Dean Winchester were on their way and she aimed to be there when they arrived. They had no idea what they were walking into and they would most certainly need her help.


The pitter-patter of rain on the Impala's windshield matched the rhythm of Dean's erratic hearbeat. What the hell was going on? Weren't these things supposed to have patterns? Rules? This damned demon seemed hell bent on breaking every one of them.

The coat was still there, lying just out of sight on the backseat. Silently whispering Dean's fears so that they echoed in his head. It was looking more and more as if they were headed toward another showdown. If they were then they would need time… and a place to prepare for an exorcism. Hopefully it would work. Otherwise…well without the Colt he had no idea what the hell their options were. Except maybe run and hide. Personally he wasn't much of a fan of either one. He was more of the 'face it head on and beat it to hell' kind of guy.

"Hey. Dean. What's the matter? You're thinking so loud I can hear the wheels turning from all the way over here."

"Just considering our options…" and dreading going home.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I wish we knew where the Colt was. I'd feel a whole lot safer if we had it on our side."

Sammy, you have no idea…

"Yeah well. Let's just get to this place and see what happened. I could be wrong about this. We might get lucky."

Sure Dean. Since when are you ever wrong about stuff like this?

Silence took over again and neither dared voice the things they were thinking, choosing instead to let the big black car roar away as it ate up the miles to their next destination. Home.


Until then they had managed to avoid acknowledging the fact that the hospital ER gig had brought them back to Kansas again. Now that they were headed to Lawrence… well it was impossible to deny it any more.

The past was catching up to them again. They were in up to their eyeballs on this one…

Twenty years had gone by and now Sam and Dean were standing just down the street from the home that had been ripped out from under them. Looking at the remains of another family's peaceful life that had literally gone up in flames was the worst kind of déjà vu.

"The damned thing is playing with us Sam. Stringing us along like puppets on a string. I don't like it!"

There was no way they could have known what would happen in that ER… except for the coat there had been nothing there to tie them to the scene in any way.

This… this they should have seen coming. They had their father's notes. All his research on this thing and its movements.

"We could have stopped this. Should have been able to stop this." If Dad were here… but Dad wasn't here. Because of him. He was to blame for this. How the hell could Sam put any faith into that 'inner light' crap when it was so clear that he was the reason all this was happening?

"There's no way we could have known Dean…" Sam tried but Dean wouldn't hear him.

"Dad would have known Sammy! We should have known."

They were at a standoff. Dean was blaming himself again. Sam didn't want him to… he sure as hell didn't blame him for any of it… but there was no arguing with Dean when he was like this. So all he could do was sigh and look away.

"Look, Dean…it's five a.m. We should get some breakfast… then I think we should go see Missouri. She might be able to help." "Great. Just the woman I wanted to see today." Sarcasm was a wonderful thing Dean thought to himself as he shook off the rain from his jacket and climbed back in behind the wheel.


Pouring rain, flash of light, crash of thunder… raging storms were glorious chaos. The man was strolling through the downpour, whistling to himself as happily as if it were a beautiful sunny day. Had there been anyone else out on the street they would have thought him crazy… as it was though it was just him, the storm and the darkness. Just the way he liked it. He was going to go pay a call to an old friend. Of John's.

Missouri didn't need her psychic powers to know that something evil was coming. The scene she'd witnessed that morning would have been proof enough…even if she hadn't been sensing the presence for days already. Now, standing in the middle of her living room feeling it come closer she was thankful that she'd taken the time to protect her home. She'd keep that thing out by sheer force of will if she had to, if it came right down to it.

It was midmorning but the skies were so dark it may as well have been the middle of the night. Even in the darkness the figure was unmistakable as it came up the street toward her home. Sauntering slowly, playing with her. Playing with them.

She felt badly for the boys. They'd only just arrived. Dean had just barely had the time to park his precious car in her garage when the storm started raging in earnest. There was no time to warn them who was coming… barely enough to tell them what was coming… and then there it was waltzing up her driveway.

If anyone knew how to keep evil out of a home, Missouri did. Salt, charms and all manner of paraphernalia… she'd used all the knowledge she had to prepare. To keep John's boys safe from harm until their time came. It was enough that they were about to experience the revelation of their lives, guaranteed to shake the very foundations their father had built beneath them. She was not going to allow them to be harmed, possibly killed in the process. And most certainly not in her own home.

"Sam, Dean. Listen carefully now… there isn't much time. You need to hide. The closet, the bathroom… doesn't matter where as long as you're in my home and can't be seen from the outside."

"What? Why?" Oh that Dean and his attitude. "Because the demon is here, and he can't know that you're here. At least not yet." But it was too late.

"MISSOURI!" He was a shadow in the center of her front lawn. "MISSOURI! I know you're in there!"

Two sets of startled eyes had settled on Missouri. She lifted a hand. A warning to stay where they were, to not say a word. That voice. They knew that voice… was that? It sounded like their father… But that was impossible…

Then there was wicked laughter in that low rumble they knew so well. "You don't have to answer me. I know you're there… standing in the middle of your living room with my boys. It's such a glorious day Missouri… you sure you don't want to come out and play?" Okay… apparently not impossible.

"Dad?" Dean's ragged voice cut through the din of the storm. The pain in that one word was deafeningly loud. Heart breaking for the poor boy, Missouri turned to him and mouthed the words 'I'm sorry'.

Bright yellow eyes flashed just beyond the living room window.

"I want my boys Missouri!"

"Your boys? I don't think so. These are John Winchesters boys."

"Oh, but haven't you heard? I am John Winchester. Come now… send the boys out and I'll leave you in pieces."

"The hell you are you evil bastard!" The shock hadn't worn off yet, but Dean felt the familiar hot anger starting to course through him again. Anger was good. Anger made him strong.

"Come out or I'll pull that house down around you." It was an empty threat designed to intimidate. The demon had no intention of finishing them off, at least not here. Not yet. No, when the time came Sam and Dean were going to come to him.

"Can he do that?" Sam cast a worried look toward Missouri.

"No Sam. He can't" she answered him in that soft, steel edged voice of hers.

Then the walls started to shake along with everything else inside as if there was some sort of freak earthquake shaking the house and its foundations..

Dean shot her an 'oh really ?' look, obviously skeptical about how right she could be. "You sure about that?"

"Dean Winchester, I am protecting your behind from almost certain death and you have the nerve to doubt me?"

He threw up his hands in surrender. "Okay! Okay! I get it. We're safe."

"And don't you sass me boy."

But he didn't hear her…couldn't hear her… because the yellow eyes had been replaced by the soft familiar brown ones he knew so well. "Dean…"

The voice was pure anguish and it sent Dean reeling back in time. Suddenly he was right back on that floor, blood pouring out of his chest listening to his father begging Sam to shoot him. To end it.

He didn't know how he got there, palms pressed to the window watching his father walk back down the drive. Didn't know how it was possible for his father to still be alive…

He was looking at him, knew he was real…and yet… they had burnt the body. Their father was dead.

He wanted to run after him…wanted desperately for that man to be the father he had lost. Could it really be…? Oh God… Was it even possible? And if it was… could they save him from the demon and still send the s.o.b. right back into hell where it belonged?

The demon had wanted to wear them down… play into their grief to send them walking blindly down the path it was laying before them and right into his trap. It had made a big mistake in revealing John to them.

Somewhere in all the darkness that had surrounded Dean since his father's death, in the darkest recesses of the abyss that had filled him so completely a faint glimmer of hope sparked to life. Instead of making him weaker it had given him exactly what he needed to become stronger.

Dean was back… he was determined…and he was mad as hell.