oOoOoOo

The swelling darkness pressed in and squeezed out all sound. Dean felt clammy as a shiver ran down his spine despite the moderate temperatures of the evening. The eerie stillness set his nerves on edge as even the night's mosquitoes seemed to flee. Dean exhaled slowly as he felt his muscles grow tense as he adopted a cagey stance, but as the silence and the solitude lingered his patience grew thin.

"Okay, this was a total waste," Dean murmured to himself as he clenched his jaw in anger. "Guess Bobby is nine kinds of crazy after all."

He huffed slightly, feeling both foolish and relieved. He should have known the journal was just some lunatic ravings, but part of him wanted to believe… needed to believe in it. His mother's life depended on it. Only now…

"My, my, my," a girl's voice purred in his ear making Dean jump. "Aren't you just adorable enough to eat? You're like a cookie. I just want to give you a nibble."

He turned abruptly to find a teenage girl, not much older than him, with sleek black hair and vivid blue eyes standing behind him. She wore a tight, sleeveless black dress that was cut high on the knee and slit dangerously up the thigh. As she strolled around him, he spied there was very little to the back of the garment as well.

"Whoa," Dean gasped. "Where did you come from?"

"Your wildest dreams," she winked.

"I'll say," Dean swallowed nervously as he tried to look a lot less scared than he felt until her jewel-toned eyes swiftly flared a shiny, blazing red. "What the hell!?"

"Ooo, Sugar," the demon grinned. "Got it right out of the gate. You're not a dumb one are you? What can I do for you, Dean Winchester?"

He blinked several times as he tried to shake the senseless buzzing in his ears while trying to keep his thoughts straight. Unlike the monster he saw in the forest, this woman wasn't bad to look at but somehow he felt she was much more dangerous.

"You know me?" he asked tightly.

"That's my job," she leaning seductively toward him. "You called me. I did my homework on the way; although that graffiti you're wearing made a little hard."

He didn't know what she was talking about but chanced a glance at his bare arms anyway. There were no markings there that he could see. As she gazed back, he felt vulnerable and slightly dirty (and not in a good way). Dean swallowed hard and blinked as he shook his head to make sure he was in fact seeing and hearing what was in front of him. The previously humming-insect filled air had gone eerily quiet upon her arrival. He felt a bit cold and clammy standing in front of her.

"What, um, what are you?" he asked, again partially hoping that Bobby's crazy scribblings were some nonsensical rambling or part of some stab at writing a novel and partly hoping they were every bit as true as Dean needed them to be.

"Me?" she grinned as she sauntered slowly around him, dragging a perfectly manicured red nail gently along his jawbone. "I'm your salvation, Dean. I'm the answer to your, well, not prayers, but I am here to make your wishes come true. I'm like your genie in a bottle. You've popped my cork so now let see if we can pop yours."

Dean remained stock still, hoping his lower regions didn't give him away for how intriguing he found this moment despite the terror radiating from his bones. He forced himself to breath slowly and ignore the tight knot forming in his chest that was telling him to run away and do it fast.

"I don't care about my… whatever, right now…. I guess," he shook his head as he struggled to keep his head straight. "Look, I read in a book that you can… fix things. Make 'em better."

"It's what I live to do," she said in a breathy fashion while standing close and nuzzling his neck in a way he felt more high school girls should learn—fast. "My entire existence is predicated on providing for the needs of those worthy enough to ask for what they want most. What is it you want, Dean? Hot set of wheels? To bang the head cheerleader?"

Dean paused and considered the offer. It was tempting, but he fully intended to build his dream car and the current head cheerleader was Molly Benway—someone who, rumor had it, was not hard to get. He didn't consider himself novice with girls, but he also didn't think Molly presented that much of a challenge even for a sophomore. Also, he reminded as he shook his head clear, he had other concerns on his mind that night, specifically another beautiful blond who he actually loved.

"No, I want my mother to get better and to live," he said in a rush.

A calm, perhaps even sympathetic look graced the face of the creature in front of him. Her bottom lip jutted out slightly as she tilted her head to the side and sighed.

"Oh, not asking for yourself, huh?" she said. "This is a virgin moment for me. I've never had a request like that. It feels… righteous."

A grin swiftly flared on her face and was gone in a blink.

"You know, that's impressive to me, Dean," she commended him. "I'm not just saying that. I'm truly moved. Trust me, considering what I've seen in my life that practically makes you saintly. It also makes this your lucky day. It just so happens that I have a special, once in a lifetime deal for just this kind of request."

Dean shook his head and sighed explosively as he glanced at his watch. The hour was stretching toward 9:30. His father would have the county sheriff out looking for him if he didn't return soon. Not that it would take him long to locate Dean seeing as the sheriff's son was zonked out in the driver's seat of a "borrowed" patrol car.

"I don't care about specials or whatever," Dean said. "I need a goddamn miracle so tell me: Can you cure my mom?"

The grin returned, a serpentine smirk that narrowed her eyes, which again flared red, to narrow slits.

"You bet your sweet, tight ass I can," she promised. "I mean, I can't perform a miracle—that's the other team's gig—but what I can do is kill something."

"I didn't ask you to kill anything," Dean seethed. "I asked you to…."

"I can take the life of what's killing her," she cut him off. "Cancer, is it? I can…"

She waved her hand in the air. The space between them shimmered like some high tech illusion spun by a magician. Dean's eyes dazzled with the effect as his chin dropped slightly.

"…make it a thing of the past," the woman continued. "I can't do it exactly overnight—that would draw the wrong kind of attention."

"She's not going to make it through tonight," Dean pleaded, his desperation dripped from his words like the tears his eyes would not spill.

"She will," the woman nodded. "I'm just letting you know that 'remission' is a process. This isn't some phony faith healing in a tent where the lame suddenly throw down their crutches then moonwalk across the stage. I'll take care of her cancer for you, but it'll a few months before it's all gone. After that, she'll be like she was before that rotten old tumor ever started."

Dean listened to the words carefully. His gut was knotting, telling him to be wary and that this was too good to be true. A few of the reading assignments Phelps had given him during the year came back to him—stories teaching lessons about things that were too good to be true; while none of those tales ever seemed to have anything to do with his history classes (and therefore seemed like pointless assignments to the student), Dean had pondered a few of them. However, in this instant, what he thought didn't matter and what he felt in his gut didn't either. It his heart, the fact that is was breaking at the idea of losing his mother, which was speaking to him the loudest in that instant.

"And she'll never get cancer again?" Dean asked, applying one of things he did learn from those extra assignments.

"Never," the woman shook her head firmly.

"A different one won't take its place?" he questioned. "There's no fine print on this deal that says you take the cancer but she gets sick with something else or gets hit by a bus the day she's cured? I know a thing or two about contracts screwing people over."

To be honest, what Dean knew was mostly from TV, but in his estimation nighttime TV, lawyer contracts, and demons didn't seem all that far apart to him on the evolutionary scale.

The demon smiled and wagged one of her long talons at him.

"I heard you weren't all that dumb behind those pretty eyes and high cheekbones," she remarked. "No, Dean. No tricks. No scams. That's not how we play this game—we're not lawyers. My kind have something called integrity. Do you really think we'd still be in business after all these years if we screwed our clients the way, say, the government does? No. So, I guarantee you that once this cancer is gone, you mother will live to a nice old age and die peacefully in her sleep, the way all good mothers should."

His heart began fluttering. This was too good to be true, but he saw no reason to stop his quest for the answer and the result he so desperately wanted and needed. The rational part of his mind was telling him this was all so weird dream and that he was going to wake up on the couch with some half-rate scifi movie rolling credits on the TV while Sam snored in the armchair opposite the couch as they waited for their father to come home with terrible news. And yet this moment felt too vivid to be a dream. Magic, or whatever this so-called demon could do, wasn't supposed to be real; then again, neither was that 8-foot tall man-lizard that tried to eat him and Sam the previous summer in the forest.

"So you'll do it?" he asked.

The demon hesitated and grimace slightly.

"Well, I don't work for free," she shrugged. "I mean, I'm not an angel after all. See, I have a bottom line to meet, quotas to fill."

Dean's shoulders drooped and his chin sunk to his chest in defeat. There it is, he thought with despair, that's what made this a Dean Winchester solution: the imminent failure part.

"I don't have any money," he said in a quiet and dejected voice as he started to turn away.

"Oh, Sweet Cheeks, no," she laughed. "I'm not looking for that kind of payment. No, Babycakes, my fee won't cost you a dime."

Dean spun on his heel to face her again. His eyes grew wide and a tremble shot through his limbs as the thrill of a second chance made the air feel electric.

"What then?" he asked.

"Baby, I just want your soul," she smiled.

oOoOoOo

The silence from the basement was growing suspicious. Bobby eyed the closed door carefully as he contemplated his next move. He cast an eye briefly toward the car in the yard and saw a small flashlight's beam illuminating the inside. Bobby doubted Dean was out there reading, but he decided the teen could use some time solo with his thoughts (and probably the damned up tears the hunter saw in his eyes earlier). It was the younger Winchester who needed a pair of eyes on him at that moment.

Quietly, being strategic about avoiding the third step, Bobby descended into the basement. The room was mostly dark as the lighting down there was bad on a good day. But it wasn't the dark so much as the continued quiet that worried Bobby. Kids, not even the contemplative Sam Winchester, played this quietly (and to be honest, Bobby had never seen Sam play at all unless it involved some activity with his brother and those instances were never quiet). As he reached the bottom step, he looked around the space and saw a flickering light in the far corner. He picked his way in that direction and had his breath stolen by what he found.

He'd seen a lot in his years. Dead men crawling out of their graves; ghosts haunting the places where they died; monsters shredding people in the darkness with vicious teeth and fangs, but nothing prepared him for this.

He knew he was not the first to watch this kind of sight. Plenty of people did this sort of thing, but to see that child, that little boy, on his knees with his hands clasped so tight his fingers were turning purple, struck the old hunter silent as he watched the little boy pray.

Sam had a lot of reasons not to believe in God. The little critter was snatched from his crib when he was still in diapers. He was spirited away from his family for reasons he would never know or understand. He was tossed into a foster care system that treated him like a shabby piece of furniture. He was neglected and forgotten by everyone the State paid to be his family. The kid had every reason to not believe in an almighty good force in the universe, one that brought comfort to the bereaved and relief to those in pain.

Yet there he was locked tightly in prayer at the front of the hospital chapel, looking for divine help to save his Mom.

With misty eyes and a heavy heart, Bobby placed his hand on the boy's small shoulder. Sam gasped and turned startled and reddened eyes to look at his surrogate uncle.

"You had me worried," Bobb said softly as he gestured to the open Bible and small candles on the floor in front of the knelling child. "Didn't know what you might be doing down here all by your lonesome. What's all this about?"

Sam shrugged in a timid yet guilty fashion.

"No one is saying anything to me, but I know what's happening," Sam replied in a small voice. "Mom's dying and everyone thinks there's nothing more anyone can do to stop it, but I can't believe that. We just found her no so long ago. I'm not ready for her to go away and I was thinking that all the doctors have done what they can, but maybe no one had tried this yet so I came down here to try..."

"Praying?" Bobby offered but from what he could see it was fairly obvious.

"Yeah," Sam swallowed hard. "I was asking God to please make my Mom get better and cure her."

Bobby nodded as he felt a lump rise in his throat. He didn't want to break the little termite's heart further by telling him what he was doing was pointless. After all, Bobby had met an angel, the real deal with wings and cocky attitude; since then, Bobby had never had so little faith the big daddy divine guardian of the universe. Bobby had discarded his thoughts on summoning Gabriel to perform a miracle for Mary. Double-O Halo barely lifted a feather to save the boys from a Wendigo a year earlier. If he had any intention or inclination to help the family again, he'd surely have done it already. Bobby wasn't sure if getting a face-to-face refusal would end so well for either of them. He was pretty sure that the defunct member of the God Squad drop out could roast him into a lump of charcoal with a snap of his stubby fingers; then again, Bobby also couldn't be sure he himself wouldn't try to barbeque the ass monkey's wings with holy oil if he refused to help. Détente in the form of avoidance seemed the best course all things considered.

"I don't know much about prayers, Sam," Bobby said, trying to help the kid understand that whatever happened next wasn't going to be his fault. "I've been told that God has his reasons for everything. I think it's a fine thing that you love your mother enough to do this, but maybe God had his reasons what's happening and those might include ending her suffering forever."

Sam hung his head. He figured it was too much to hope that the prayers of one little kid would get any notice coming from a world where it seemed like everyone was suffering and in need. Still, that didn't mean he shouldn't try. And even if Bobby was right, there was more in his prayers than just asking for help for his mother.

"Do you think God has plans for my Dad and Dean?" Sam asked curiously with a shade of fear tinging his words. "I was praying for them, too. God might want to take Mom to heaven, but Dad and Dean are going to need someone to watch over them the way she always did. I was praying that if she has to go to Heaven that God would let Mom become an angel so she could still do that."

Bobby smiled sadly then gave his shoulder a slight squeeze as the boy brushed a tear from his eye with the back of his hand.

"I don't think that's how it works," Bobby replied, glad the little boy didn't know what jackasses angels were and how little they cared about people. "But that's a nice sentiment. I think that if God thinks your Daddy and brother need an angel, he'll make sure they have one. But maybe they won't need one; they've got each other and they've got me. Oh, and we've all got you. That's pretty good in my book."

Sam nodded then leaned into Bobby's as tears started to dribble liberally down his cheeks.

"You and me are gonna have a big job," Sam offered in a tight and uneven voice.

oOoOoOo

Dean stood still in the heavy evening hair with her words ringing in his ears. They sounded foreign to him, as if she has spoken another language. He let them roll around in his brain for several long moments until he was certain he had heard them correctly.

"My soul?" he repeated.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Let me guess. You never even considered that you had one until I mentioned it, did you? Not a religious kind of guy, am I right? Well, then it can't be that you'll miss it much. Good for you, I guess. You might say it's a hell of a deal."

She grinned in a way that would have been enticing if not for the flare in her eyes; they gave the toothy smile a cold and calculating shade.

"I don't know," Dean replied skeptically. "I never thought about it."

"Which means you never use it," she encouraged. "Therefore, it's got no value to you, but where I come from, that's what keeps the lights on, so to speak. Now, I'm very reasonable with my payback plans. You're 16, right?"

Dean nodded. He reached that milestone the previous January. It had been a triumphant accomplishment because along with it came the ability to get a driver's license. At the time, it was what he wanted most in the world. Now, he couldn't remember why that seemed so important.

"Well, then we can do business," she replied. "See, where I come from, that means you reached the age of capacity." Dean stared blankly at her. "You can thank the advent of the whole Latchkey Kid phenomena for that. See, it used to be that kids were cared for until they were 18, then you all went and got independent early, taking care of siblings and yourself long before any other generation had to so we go the rules changed—and we did it all for you. What I'm saying is that our rule say you're free to make your own choices about your life, like what to do with your soul."

Dean nodded. He considered himself independent. Free? Not so much. He lived with Atilla the Marine and a mother who ran an intel network on her kids that would shame the CIA. Or… she had until she got sick.

"How do you get it?" he asked hesitantly. "Is it painful?"

He felt a little foolish asking. After all, he didn't really think he had a soul, that they were real, until this freak of nature with the red eyes assigned a value to it then offered to trade it for his mother's life. Since he wasn't precisely aware of its existence, he didn't know exactly where it resided in his body. Removal from certain sensitive parts made him nervous.

As if reading his mind, she smiled again then laughed as she shook her head.

"Don't worry, Dean," she replied. "You won't feel a thing. Now, because you're new to this and only recently of age, I'm not taking payment upfront. In fact, seeing as you're not even doing this for yourself even, I'll give you my most generous offer. I'll give you 10 years."

"Ten years?" Dean repeated skeptically. "What's 10 years of what? You said my mother would die when she was old. She's not going to be old in 10 years."

"You are just too cute," she giggled. "I could just nibble you right now. Dean, your Mom will get another 50 years easy. What I'm saying is that you don't need to pay for me another decade. Ten years from this very night, I'll come and collect your soul—regardless of what shape it's in. No change in terms. No change in benefits. So, until we meet again, do whatever you like with it. Slut around and tarnish it up by nailing every sweet thing with long legs and beautiful eyes that comes along. Or keep it starchy clean and drag it to church on Sundays if that's what makes you tingle in those naughty sweet spots of yours. After all, it's yours—for now anyway."

"So in 10 years I have to be right here to pay you?" he asked. "What if I forget?"

"Don't you worry about that," she shook her head. "You won't need to find me. I'll find you. Ten years from tonight, I'll catch up with you—it's one of my special tricks. Who knows, by then you might just be too much for me to resist; I might just have to come see you a day early so we can have a little fun. Until then, all you have to do is live your life, Dean. Enjoy yourself. Spend time with your Mom and the rest of your family. Does that sound fair?"

"It sounds easy," Dean replied and felt anything but that in his stomach.

He chewed on his lip. He looked over his shoulder at the car where Chuck was still slumped with his mouth open leaning against the driver's door. Not that Dean usually asked his pal for advice, but this did seem like a moment when a little conference with someone might be helpful. He looked further down the road, to the small glint of light over that shone on the sign for Singer's Salvage Yard.

"Thinking about asking Bobby's opinion?" she said with a sneer. "You can jog the two miles to his place to see if he's around, but I'm not certain I'll be here when you get back. Then again, your Mom might not be there even if you do get back here before I go. See, that would be a problem. Curing the sick, I can do. Raising the dead? Not so much."

"What's the catch?" he asked abruptly. Again, odd lessons from Phelp's extra credit/torture came to mind—specifically (and oddly) deals struck with tyrants over the years that were supposed to avoid war but usually led right to it all the same. "I can't see where my soul is worth much of anything, but you're here promising to give me something that all of the money in the world can't buy. There's no such thing as an 'everybody wins proposition' so what aren't you telling me?"

She raised her eyebrows and was mildly impressed. The prophesy, the one everyone gave up on ages ago, had never mentioned that the Righteous Man who made the deal be a man-child nor that he would be clever. Granted, prophesies were not always detailed or accurate, but the few times Hell made a deal with someone looking to be self-sacrificing on someone else's behalf, that person always turned out to be all Play-Dough between the ears. This kid wasn't exactly breaking the bank on critical thinking that night, but his doubts were enough to put this transaction in jeopardy.

"What do you mean?" she repeated.

"I'm just wondering if this is such a great bargain, then why is what you do so secret and have such a bad rep?" he asked with an aggressive edge to his voice as he stepped back from her. "Bobby's journal only had dark and nasty stuff in it. That's how I summoned you. So…"

"Cupcake, considering how old I really am, you are total jailbait, but the fact you didn't try and wow me with the word 'ergo' just now got me hot in a way home never can," she grinned then suddenly folded her arms and affected a superior air as all airs of flirting vanished. "I'll let you in on the real secret: you just busted me. Yep, you got us. You figured it out. That whole taboo thing about selling your soul, that's just my office's PR. Look, if we gave everyone what they wanted whenever they called us, no one would try to accomplish anything on their own. You'd be a race of lazy, greedy, worthless asses all driving around in new cars with no incentive to try to do anything for yourselves. And us? We'd be burned out, miserable and hating life—hating all of you, too. So, to keep the wheels turning, help the friendships survive and save ourselves from all of you, we created a pretty convincing cover story. Ages ago, my bosses put the word out that it's a dark and dangerous thing to sell your soul. We did it for selfish reasons, Dean: our survival. Nowadays, business is manageable because we have rules. We're the go-to team when the cause is worthy, but we also get our space and relaxation time, too."

Dean nodded as he listened to the explanation. It sounded reasonable and logical—something bad and evil stuff shouldn't be. Then again, he reminded himself, saving his mother wasn't a bad thing. That too was logical and reasonable in his mind.

"So what are these rules?" he asked cautiously.

"There are just three," the demon said plainly. "Rule one: Caveat emptor. That's Latin—most of our stuff is so old that it's all in Latin—and it means let the buyer beware. Basically, that means you make sure you know what you're getting when you ask. You, Dean Winchester, seem to know precisely what you want and how you want it. That is good business. Rule one, check. Rule two: All deals are final. So if you change your mind a few weeks down the road and you want your Mom to die, don't expect me to show up and put the cancer back."

"What?" Dean choked on the mere thought of that. "I would never…"

"Good," she grinned quickly. "Then we have agreement on rule two. Check. Finally, the big one: We only makes deals with those who are worthy."

Worthy was one of those words that worried Dean. That was a judgmental word, one that people held over you and used to measure you. Dean knew he usually didn't measure up when it came to those moments, but this wasn't about him, he reminded himself.

"You think my Mom's worthy?" he asked in a small, hopeful but fear-filled voice.

"This isn't about her, Dean," she said in a kind tone as she reach forward and gently grabbed his hand. "This deal is yours. I can say without hesitation that you're more worthy than you apparently know."

Dean marveled at that. He'd never been told he was worthy of much, unless he counted when Principal Carlson said he was worthy of a permanent seat in detention. A few teachers suggested that he might be worthy of a place in the state penitentiary, but those were usually whispered when they thought he was out of earshot. Oddly, the one who usually defended him from those twits was the one who put him in detention, Mr. Phelps. However, his history teacher's opinion wasn't relevant at that moment.

"Now, I don't want to rush you, but I get the feeling you're cutting things a little close here," the demon nudged him. "So, are you ready to make a deal?"

Dean felt his pulse race and his heart shiver (or was that his soul, he wondered). He took a deep yet shaky breath then nodded.

"I guess," he replied. "What now? Do I have to sign something?"

"Oh, it's easier than that, Handsome," she replied as she draped her arms over his shoulder and pulled him close. "Where do you think the phrase sealed with a kiss comes from?"

oOoOoOo

A/N: More to come.