Chapter Nine

Ella

"This isn't a trick. I don't do tricks. This is a demonstration about demons and angels, love and lust."

"What a douche bag," Dean says as we walk up wearing our FBI attire.

"It's Jeb Dexter."

"I don't even wanna know how you know that, Sam."

"He's famous, kinda."

"For what?" I ask. "Douchebaggary?" Dean chuckles.

"Guests, don't touch me, okay? For your own safety." He starts his magic trick, oh I'm sorry demonstration. He starts freaking out and acting like a demon is inside of him and I press my face into Dean's arm to control my giggles. Although I have to admit the card in the window thing is kind of cool, but the fake demon possession, was not cool.

"You've gotta be kidding me, a fake demon possession? I haven't been on the job as long as you two but that was stupid and not how it works." Dean and I walk away, Sam has to catch up.

"I can't believe people actually fall for that crap."

"It's not all crap."

"What part of that was not a steaming pile of B.S.?"

"Okay, that was crap. But that's not all magicians. It takes skill." Sam says acting all confident.

Dean remembers something. "Oh right, right, I forgot you were actually into this stuff, weren't you? You had a deck of cards and a wand."

"Dude I was thirteen."

"Awh little, well big, Sammy was a magician? I hope you didn't wear eye liner like that freak over there. I mean I wear it, because it actually looks alright on me. Him, no."

"It was a phase, El."

"Just bugs me. Actually it offends me. Playing in demon into magic when the real thing will kill you bloody."

"Like a guy who drops dead of ten stab wounds without a sing tear in his shirt?" Sam offers.

"That's what I'm talking about." We walk to the dead man's assistant in his hotel room. "So did your boss have any enemies that you know of?"

"Vance had plenty of enemies."

"How so?" Sam asks.

"He would steal from other magicians all the time."

"What would he steal?" He asks again.

"Stage effects, close up techniques, anything he could get his hands on." The assistant says.

"Is it enough to get him killed?" I asked.

"These guys take this stuff pretty seriously." She takes a cape off of the couch and a rabbit is underneath. "There you are," she says, picking it up. My nose starts twitching and I sneeze a few times.

"Sorry, allergic. I'm gonna," I sneeze and point to the door. I walk out and stand against the wall, getting my act together. Sam and Dean walk out a few minutes later.

"I'm going back to the room," Sam says to me.

"I'm coming with you, because there are too many rabbits and I'm allergic." Dean tells us he's going to go talk to some of the other magicians and then come back in a few hours. Sam and I start talking on the way to the room when we part ways with Dean.

"So I noticed all of the hand holding and touches and looks."

"And?"

"And I also noticed the kiss a couple of weeks ago at Bobby's, I also noticed the kiss you gave him when we parted ways."

"Your point?" I say, trying to act casual, and it's failing miserably.

"You're together, aren't you?" I avoid eye contact. I try to unlock the room to go in but Sam steps in front of me. "You are! I'm glad. Just don't do the nasty while I'm here."

"Don't worry about that. That's not something I want you to hear. If we were to do it, we'd get another room. A little ways away from yours. Or Dean would tell you to get out and do some research at the library instead of here. I'll let you know with like a gesture of some sort, maybe."

"Oh God. Really, El?"

"It's new. You're lucky we didn't want to do anything with the last case."

"Alright, well I'm gonna check out the vic's record. If you want to help go for it."

"I will."

I sit across from him at the table in my camp sweats and my shirt from earlier for the FBI act. My nylons are on under my sweats to I can slip off my sweats and put my skirt back on if needed. We sit doing research for a few hours when there's a knock at the door. We look up from what we are doing and we're confused. I check the clock on the wall and it's half past nine.

Sam slowly gets up trying not to make any noise. He points to the back of the room and I get up slowly and walk over with a book to look normal. He checks the peephole and sighs.

He opens the door and says, "What are you doing here Ruby?"

"I should be asking you the same thing." She walks in and sees me.

"I think I'll give you two a minute." I stand and walk outside and lean against the wall. They're in there for a couple of minutes when Ruby comes out.

"You can go back in now. And tell Sam that he needs to get his ass in gear and cut the head of the snake. He somewhat listens to you." I nod and go back in.

"We got a call," Sam says. "We're meeting Dean there."

"Let me get my skirt back on and take my hair out of the braid, then we'll be good." I go to the bathroom with my skirt and slip off my sweats. I put the skirt on and I take my hair out of the long braid I did. It took me ten minutes but it's ten minutes that were worth it, because my hair is flowy and wavy instead of the straight look I did this morning when we got here. My hair is naturally curly and I don't normally flat-iron my hair unless we have to keep up appearances. If its a driving day, screw my hair. That's what buns are for.

We walk out and we go down to the lobby and into the theater.

"Did Dean just want to watch a magic show?"

"I think so yeah."

"All right, so I had to take my hair out, why?"

"Dean never told me he wanted to watch the magic show."

"Find anything interesting?" Dean says running his fingers over the small of my back, brushing the ends of my hair, as he walks past.

"Uh, no. You?"

"Nothing I wanna talk about, or think about ever again." That just makes me curious. Dean motions for us to walk to down the steps and to the other magicians that I guess are friends with the one performing tonight. "So the chief huh?"

"What's the matter? The chief not your type."

"You know I could have you both arrested for obstruction of justice."

"You're no fed. We con people for a living, son. Takes more than a fake badge to get past us."

Sam and Dean laugh. "You got us," Dean tells him. "Yeah, we are actually aspiring magicians."

"Yeah, we came to the convention cause we thought we could learn something," I say.

"Get some ideas for our new show!" Dean says. They're look of impression isn't real.

"What kind of show?"

"It's a brother act," Sam says. "She's our assistant."

"You know with the rings and doves," I say. "But not rabbits, I'm allergic which is a shame. They so cute and popular for aspiring magicians." The announcer starts talking and the magician goes up.

"Wanna learn something, stick around." One of the magician's say.

The magician on stage starts his trick and has one minute to get out of a noose with a straight jacket on. And he's almost out of time.

"I don't think he's going to make it," Dean says. The man drops and everyone is freaking out till the curtains open and he's standing, just fine with no straight jacket on.

"That was not humanly possible," I tell Sam.

"I agree."


We go back to the room and I get undressed in the bathroom for bed. I get shorts on since I can't sleep with pants on, it's just not comfortable when it rides up around your legs and you get irritated first thing in the morning. I would prefer to sleep naked, but Sam is here and that's just inappropriate.

I crawl into bed and I sit with the newest book I've started reading. It's called, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and it's really good so far. Dean doesn't understand how I read so many books with the job taking up so much time.

While Sam is taking a shower, Dean crawls onto the bed and I quickly memorize the page number I'm on. He pushes the book out of my hands and wraps his arms around my middle, resting his head next to my neck. He bites and kisses my neck and it feels so good that I want to take him now, but I don't because of Sam. But since he does take long showers, I do roll us over so I'm on top and I kiss Dean.

His hands are on my hips and he's kissing back. I love it and I want to go further but Sam's shower ends. I kiss Dean once more, it's a long, hard kiss and I pull back when I hear the bathroom door open. Sam comes out with the towel around his waist and he get's his clothes and gets dressed in the bathroom. I roll away and reach down to grab my book, sure that Dean is staring at my ass.

"You know Dean, there is this little thing called a hand and everyone's got one. I can easily slap you with it," I tell him.

"Hey nothing wrong with a little peek. I mean, we are together." I roll my eyes and sit back up, leaning against his arm which is behind my back. His fingers play with my hair. He leans over and says, "I really like your hair like this. All straight with a little bit of a wave to it. I've never told you because we weren't together at the time and the past couple of weeks, it's been curly. I like it like that, but I do really like it like this." He kisses my arm. I smile and he goes back so laying on his back. His eyes are closed.

"So, should I keep straightening it?"

"Yes. And that stuff you put in your hair smells so good."

"It's called heat protectant. And I use it so my hair doesn't get fried and look stupid." I put the book down. "Let's go to sleep. We can do research tomorrow."

"Now you're my kind of woman." I smirk and lay down facing him, his arm over my head on the top part of my pillow.

"Night." He kisses my forehead and we go to sleep.


"Looks like this guy Jay was a pretty big deal in the seventies," Sam comments after a couple of hours of research.

"Which in magician land means what, exactly?"

"Big enough to play a radio city music hall."

"What got him stuck in the 'Where Are They Now?' file?" Dean asks.

"He got old."

"Okay," I start. "Maybe Incredible Jay is using real magic to stage a comeback." And it's the only thing I say out of their entire conversation.

"It's possible," Sam agrees. "Some kind of spell that works a death transference."

"How does the tarot card mix into it?" Dean asks.

Sam shrugs, looking back to his computer. "I don't know."

"Man, I hope I die before I get old," Dean says. "Whole thing seems brutal don't it?" Dean gets up and starts looking at the tarot card.

"You think we will?" Sam asks.

"What?"

"Die before we get old?"

"Haven't we both already?"

"You know what I mean, Dean. I mean, do you think we'll still be chasing demons when we're sixty."

"No. I think we'll be dead. For good. What, you wanna end like uh, like, like Travis? Or Gordon maybe?"

"There's Bobby."

"Oh yeah, there's a poster child for grownup gracefully."

"Maybe we'll be different, Dean."

"What kind of kool-aid, you drinkin' man? Sammy, it ends bloody or sad. That's just the life," Dean tells him, picking my feet up and sitting under them while I'm looking at old newspaper articles.

Sam closes his laptop. "What if we could win?"

"Win?"

"If there was a way we could just put an end to all of it."

"Is there something going on that you're not telling me?"

"No." Sam seems truthful, I believe him.

"Sammy."

"No. Look, I'm just saying that. I just wish there was a way we could go after the source. That's all. Cut the head off the snake," Sam says, repeating Ruby's words from earlier.

"Well problem with the snake is it has a thousand heads. Evil bitches just keep piling out of the Volkswagen."

"Guess you're right," Sam says letting it go for now.

"Why don't you go see if you can track down Jay. I'll see what I can dig up on this tarot card." Sam nods and leaves, probably for a few hours.

Dean gets up and sits at the computer. I put the articles down and look at Dean. I can see him getting older and living life comfortably with kids and not getting them mixed up in this business. But they will know an angel or two if I have anything to say about it.

"Dean?"

"Ella." He turns to look at me.

"Do you ever see yourself settling down, having kids that aren't entwined with all of this?"

"Oh no. We are not having this talk. We've been together over a month, I'm not going to talk marriage with you."

"Dean, I meant in general. It's piggy backing onto what Sam was asking earlier about being sixty and alive."

He's silent for a couple of seconds. "Maybe, okay? Probably no kids, I'm already thirty. I need to start getting them poppin' out now if I was going to possibly see graduation. I don't know, maybe they'll get Sam's intelligence and skip a couple of grades and get done quicker than the others."

"Dean, I'm sure you'd see graduation. You'd make sure someone brought you back so you could see it." I smile and he's smug about his smile. "Oh Dean. Come on, cheer up." I stand and walk to him. "Turn that frown upside down!" I put my fingers on either side of his lips and briefly push the sides of his mouth up. I pull away and he somewhat smiles. "There ya go. Doesn't it feel better to smile?" He frowns. "Alright, you asked for it." I go to the door and put the do not disturb sign on the outside doorknob.

I straddle his lap, take off my shirt so I'm only in my bra and jeans, and I kiss him. I wrap my arms around his neck and I mouth closer to mine. He gets into it and he opens my mouth, and I let our tongues tangle and explore. His hands are flat against my back, pulling my body closer to his so my breasts rest on his chest. I trail my hands from his shoulders when he pulled me so close to him, to his cheeks.

We unbutton each others pants and he lifts me up, carrying me to the bed. He lays me on my back and he pulls my pants off and his too. I unclip my bra tossing it to the floor and he pulls my underwear off same with his boxers. He's just about to slide in when his phone rings. He gets up with everything showing and answers.

"Hello?" Pause to let them talk. "Yeah, okay. We will be there in forty minutes. I was about to jump in the shower." He hangs up after a couple seconds and comes back. "We've gotta make this quick." I smile and he bends to kiss me, making both of us ready again.

Dean positions his hips and slowly slides in. He's slow at first letting me get used to it. Then he speeds up.

We finish and clean up and get dressed in twenty five minutes. We are out of their and in the lobby of the other hotel watching Sam walk in by the time forty minutes is up.

"Maid found Jeb hanging from the ceiling fan. Police think it was a suicide, I beg to differ. Pulled a little sleight of hand myself," Dean tells Sam, holding up the tarot card we found in Jeb's things.

"So I've been thinking if this spell is a death transfer, then these cards work like black magic targets."

"Think there's a connection between the victims?"

"Jeb was a total douche bag to Jay yesterday," Dean points out.

"What about the first vic, Vance?"

"Asked around," I start. "apparently Vance was heckling Jay at the bar the day he was killed," I tell him.

"Okay so Jay sneaks the card into Vance's pocket, does the table of death,"

"And Vance takes ten swords to the chest," I finish.

"Then Jay slips a noose and Jeb doesn't. Hell of a trick."

"Yeah, it's time we had a little chat with Jay. Any luck tailing him?"

Sam's hesitant to respond. "He slipped me."

Dean's confused. "He's a sixty year old."

"He's a magician," Sam clarifies.


I go back to the room while Sam and Dean break into his room. Though a few hours later my phone rings. I recognize the number as the police station.

"Hello?"

"Ella, we need you to bail us out of jail," Dean says.

"How the hell did you wind up there!" I yell at him.

"He called the cops!" He was definitely good at keeping what he did a secret. "Sam and I need you to bail us out. We obviously didn't do it right?"

"Last I heard you and your brother were on your way back to the room."

"Exactly!" Lie, complete lie. "Tell them that!" I tell Dean I'm on my way and I hang up.


Later that night, we find out that Jay dropped the charges so I wasn't needed to come down, but I wasted my time and effort doing so.

"Jay," I start, "thanks for dropping the charges against these two idiots."

"And who are you?"

"His," I point to Dean and link my fingers through his, "girlfriend. Why did you do it though?"

"We have to talk." We follow him to the bar and he tells us Charlie is dead and orders a drink before talking anymore. "I was just a kid when we first met. All I knew was how to cheat at cards. Charlie got me out of more scrapes than I can count. Hell I would have been dead by the age of twenty if it hadn't been for him." Jay sighs deeply. "He was more than my friend. He was my brother." I can see Sam looking at Dean out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm sorry, Jay," Sam tells him.

"Look, I should have listened to you guys when you told me my show was killing people."

"Well you weren't the one pullin' the trigger," Dean comments.

"Yeah, but someone did and I wanna find out who did this to Charlie so I'll do whatever you guys say. Tell me what to do."

I start talking. "Jay whoever's doing this, they like you, they're probably close to you. Did Charlie and Vernon get along?"

"No. No, it's not Vernon."

"He's the only one who makes sense," Dean replies. "Charlie and Vernon were your family, Jay, and now Charlie's gone."

"Yeah but they butted heads sometimes but Vernon could never do something like this."

Dean counters Jay's response. "See the thing about real magic, it's a whole lot like crack. People do some surprising things once they get a taste of it."

"You better be damn sure about this," Jay whispers. "Vernon's all I got left."


We get Vernon's room number and we break in. Dean lets me pick the lock because I've picked my house lock before, both the window and the doors so I can pick locks. I get it open in about 45 seconds. We walk in and we're surprised.

"Wow, it's like a magic museum," Sam comments.

"You must be heaven, Sam." I tell him. He rolls his eyes and walks forward. "He doesn't travel light."

"He's been on the road his whole life. Everything he owns is probably in this room. Let's get started." We look around and Dean finds something.

"Damn. Look like anyone we know?" He holds the picture up and it's Charlie. We rush out of there and get to the theater. "Not so fast!" Dean says as we reach them. "I ain't Gutenburg and this ain't cocoon." Dean flashes his gun and waves Jay and Vernon out-of-the-way.

"Immortality. That's a neat trick," I tell him.

"That's not a trick." A rope is around Dean's neck and tight. "It's magic." Sam fires his gun and Charlie just spits it back out. "Hey bullet catch. I've been working on that."

"Get him," Dean yells down at Sam.

Sam walks up to him, gun at the ready. "Let him go, now!"

"Just leave me and my friends alone."

"He said now, Charlie." I tell him.

"Fine, I'll give it up. The spells, the hexes this is the last time, I promise." Sam throws a punch when Dean isn't alright and Charlie's gone. He knocks Sam into the one with the cuffs and the knives, scary. The rope is slowly breaking and a tarot card is in Charlie's pocket. I stab Jay and he doesn't bleed or feel any pain. The whole exchange saves everyone's lives except Charlie's. He's dead now. And Jay is miserable. Dean tries to convince him otherwise but it's not working.

"All right. I guess there's nothing we can do. Have a good rest of your life, Jay. I really hope you feel better." And we leave.