Chapter 9

Hey kiddies, I am soo sorry this chapter has taken forever. But if it helps, it's longer than my extended essay was. Though I'm sorry to say it turns out finishing this flashback was too long for one chapter. I swear I'll finish it up half way through the next one which will hopefully be posted soon... If you're in Year 12 you'll understand that my definition of 'soon' can be a little ridiculous by normal standards. But I'll try my best. In the mean time, I hope this is all right!


The sky was tinged with a pink and grey pre-dawn glow as the Impala drove along the winding road through the green countryside toward the Birmingham farm.

Curled up in the leather interior of the back seat, Ella stifled a yawn, wiping her eyes blearily as she gazed out the window, Dean's leather jacket wrapped around her in an effort to stay warm as the Impala's air conditioning struggled to warm up.

'Actually Sam, could I please take that coffee now?' She spoke up.

'Sure.'

'Thanks.'

'So remind me again what we think this thing is?' Dean asked Sam presently.

'Ok well, it never occurred to me to even think about it but when Ella typed in goat killer it reminded me…' Sam clicked open a window on the lap top resting on his knees.

'It's called a chupacabra, which is Spanish for goatsucker. I guess that explains the drained blood and the bizarre goat fetish. Umm…reports of this thing first originated in the late 80s in Puerto Rico. But since then eyewitness sightings have cropped up in Peru, Russia, Bolivia, even San Antonio and Maine. It's said to feed on cattle, turkeys, ducks, sheep, horses, but their specialty is obviously goats. Now, no two eyewitness reports can agree on the same physical description. Some say the thing looks like a cross between a kangaroo and a hairless dog ('Intimidating.' Dean remarked.) While others claim it's more of a reptilian creature, sometimes with wings but normally with fangs and eyes that glow red, inducing nausea and disorientation in their victims.'

'Any reports of these things killing humans?' Dean questioned.

'Nope, not as far as I'm aware.'

'Huh…' Dean frowned thoughtfully. 'It all sounds kind of dodgy if you ask me. What urban legends that came out of the 80's actually turn out to be true?'

'Michael Jackson's plastic surgery?' Ella suggested quietly.

Dean smirked.

'To be honest, I have to agree.' Sam said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. 'It seems like a massive hoax. I mean this 'thesis' by some guy called Bob Buck notes that most chupacabra sightings are associated with supposed UFO activity. One woman in Canovanas supposedly saw a UFO drop a box into a rainforest filled with the things, weeks later over 3000 sheep had been killed….But how much credibility can be given to descriptions of a creature that looks like a cross between a vampire and a marauding furry lizard?'

'Marauding furry lizard?' Dean repeated with a laugh in his voice. 'What a joke.'

Sam nodded but a second later frowned, leaning closer toward the screen of the computer. 'Huh…' He said after a moment.

'What is it?' Ella questioned.

Sam finished reading the entry before replying. 'This site actually connects the more frightening description of the chupacabra with the legend of the Jersey devil.'

'18th century woman called Deborah Smith's jackass husband Mr. Leeds wants a number of heirs to continue the family tradition, and so gets his wife pregnant successively with 12 children?' Dean said promptly.

'Right, and when the wife discovers she's pregnant with kid number 13, she declares she'd rather have the devil's son than another of Leeds' heirs: cursing the unborn child.' Sam continued. 'And when the child is born…'

'The wife gets her wish…When the kid is born it has wings, glowing red eyes, cloven hooves and walks on it's hind legs.' Dean supplied.

'And proceeds to eat the other 12 Leeds children before escaping out the chimney and haunting Pine Barrens, functioning as the scapegoat for hundreds of livestock deaths over the next couple of centuries.' Sam finished, catching Ella's look of disgust in the rear view mirror.

'That's all well and good, Sammy, but first of all we're nowhere near New Jersey and secondly, even if this thing did have a connection somehow with Birmingham: supposedly all of Deborah Leeds' descendants died when the jersey devil chowed down on them so the whole 'hunting down the last of the family line' thing is kind of redundant.'

'Maybe not.' Sam contradicted. 'It says here that an article published in the New York Times in 1998 claimed Deborah Leeds had descendants still surviving in Atlantic County in New Jersey.'

'Once again, Sammy, we're nowhere near New Jersey.' Dean told him.

Sam shrugged, unconvinced. 'You never know.'

The Impala pulled up at the bottom of the hill of the Birmingham farm and came to a halt, the car engine rumbling until Dean yanked out the key. The Winchesters got out of the car, Ella trailing behind them, clutching her coffee. 'Are you guys sure this is…I don't know…legal? Going into a crime scene?'

Sam and Dean looked at each other. 'Nope.' They said simultaneously.

Ella's brow furrowed. Dean held the gate open for her, looking at her expectantly.

'Ok.' She said at last, following them into the property. The three of them trudged up the hill, the dew sodden grass soaking through their shoes. The dog that had greeted the brothers the day before was nowhere to be seen and the air had all the muffled stillness of what remained of the night.

They reached the house, which had been amateurishly roped off with yellow tape by the local police. Dean pushed it aside dismissively before proceeding to kick down the front door. It was more than likely the door was already unlocked, but who was he to decline a chance to show off?

The rooms of the cottage were in complete chaos. Clearly, Birmingham hadn't given up without a fight. And what a fight it must have been. The screen of the small television in the living room had been smashed to pieces. The broken china of a vase littering their path like a minefield. Everywhere, furniture was upturned, the coverings torn to shreds.

'Je-sus.' Dean let out a low whistle as he began to tread carefully throughout the rest of the house. Unconsciously he placed a protective hand on Ella's back, she looked up in confusion and he withdrew it quickly.

Long scratches dragged along the wall ending at the doorway to the kitchen, complimented by a smear of dark blood.

'You wanna wait in the car?' Sam asked Ella in a low voice, seeing her flinch. She bit her lip, looking undecided before squaring her shoulders and shaking her head determinedly.

It was clear that it was in the kitchen that the murder had taken place. A chalk outline, stained with blood, was drawn near the back door. Ella felt somewhat queasy as she imagined the farmer fumbling with the lock, trying to escape the monster. He had never made it…

Sam was frowning, examining the locked windows. 'Ok, so if the front door was locked, the thing escaped out the back and the windows were closed…how did it…?'

'Dude.'

Sam looked over to where Dean was pointing. Cloven foot prints trailed through the ash spilling from the fireplace.

'The chimney?' Ella raised her eyebrows as she made the connection between the story and the sight in front of them.

'Kind of like a really freaky Santa Claus.' Dean commented.

'Ho ho ho.' Said Sam drily. He dusted a substance on the kitchen counter with his fingers, scrutinising it carefully. 'Sulfur.'

'Huh…'

Stepping over the chalk outline, Dean went to investigate the back of the property. Ella was more than eager to leave the dark gloom of the house and quickly followed.

'Check it out.' Sam strode over to a rusty pick up truck, Dean and Ella at his heels. 'The number plate.'

'Atlantic county, New Jersey.' Dean observed. 'Nice going, Sammy.'

Sam nodded at the acknowledgment, as the three of them rounded the corner, heading toward the barn.

'Oh my God!' Ella gasped.

Lying on the ground at their feet was the corpse of a very dead dog. Sam and Dean recognised it instantly as their friend from the day before, although sans any blood or internal organs. All that remained was a limp furry carcass.

By now Ella had turned away, unable to comprehend quite how her father and uncle managed to be so detached as they inspected the poor creature. Concentrating on not throwing up, it was Ella who first saw the man heading towards them.

'Guys.' She coughed.

The Winchesters snapped to attention.

There was nowhere for them to hide. It wouldn't have mattered if there were. The man had seen them and was now angrily calling out to them.

'What the hell do you think you're doing here?' He demanded, marching towards them.

'Morning friend.' Dean greeted easily. 'I'm Roger, this is my brother Jim and my daughter Betsy Lou.'

Sam and Ella glared at their brother and father respectively before smiling sweetly.

'We're uh- neighbours.' Sam offered quickly as Dean shoved him (his own expertise at improvisation running dry.) 'We came to offer our condolences…and see if there's anything we can do to help.'

The man looked at the three of them suspiciously. Dean smiled charmingly, Sam had his infamously innocent puppy dog eyes while Ella thanked the Lord that in her deluded tiredness this morning, she had tied her hair in plaits and proceeded to twirl them as angelically and subtly as possible.

Somehow it worked. It shouldn't have. But it did.

'I shouldn't have yelled before…It's been a difficult time for us all.' Said the man, sighing heavily as he stretched out a weathered hand. Sam and Dean shook it. 'The name's John, Darren was my brother in law. My sister, his wife, was staying in town with us when the police called us…Terrible shock…I've just driven her here to go through Darren's things.'

As if on cue, a woman came around the corner. The Winchesters and Ella had to conceal their surprise. While Birmingham had been a man in his late forties, his wife would have been lucky to be 30. Blond, attractive and well dressed she was also heavily pregnant.

'Christine.' John turned around warily, following the line of their gazes. 'You should have stayed in the car.'

Christine ignored him, her eyes settling on the two brothers, as she looked them up and down in what could only be considered an appreciative way.

'Mrs Birmingham.' Dean stepped forward. 'I'm very sorry for your loss. If there's anything my family and I can do for you…'

'Please…' said the woman, her eyes flickering at 'Mrs Birmingham'. ' I prefer Ms Marlowe…I go by my maiden name…'

Ella and Sam exchanged slightly troubled glances at these words. Dean's expression remained neutral.

'Anyway, guys, my sister and I should…' John trailed off awkwardly, clearly more than aware of the impropriety of the way Christine was behaving, particularly as her gaze continued to linger on the two brothers in an almost predatory manner.

'Of course, of course.' Dean said. 'We should be returning to our farm…Our cows won't milk themselves after all, right, Roger? Betsy Lou?'

'Right, Paw.' Said Ella brightly.

'This is my cell number,' said Sam after hesitating a moment, taking out a pen and scribbling a number down on the back of a receipt he had found in his pocket. 'If either of you need anything, call us.'

The three of them nodded at John and his sister before walking around the side of the house, trooping down the hill toward the Impala.

'Ok well that was creepy on multiple levels.' Ella burst out as soon as she was sure they were out of earshot.

'Dude, the pregnant lady was totally checking me out.' Dean remarked.

'She was giving you both the eyeball.' Grinned Ella.

'Yeah, but it was a pity eyeball with Sammy, clearly I'm the more handsome of the two of us.'

'Real mature, Dean.'

'Thank you.'

'And what was with you calling me Betsy Lou? What am I? The love child of Atticus Finch and Cindy Lou Who??' Ella demanded.

'Not my fault you don't have a number of false identities for me to draw upon at a moment's notice.' Her father retorted.

'Ok well,' Sam said, rolling is eyes, as if continuing a conversation they had been having previously. 'Clearly, there's something up with this Birmingham guy. Something more than meets the eye. I mean a trophy wife on a farm?'

'But she wasn't at the farm at the time, was she?' Ella reminded.

'Yeah, well, as a married couple, that's kinda odd in itself.' Said Dean.

'Exactly.'


When they reached the motel it was only just breakfast time. However, after the events of the morning, none of them were particularly hungry.

'So what now?' Ella questioned as the three of them stood in the lobby.

'Well, um,' Dean ran his hand through his hair before pulling out his wallet and digging out a wad of bills. ' Here, take this. I think there's a general store a couple of streets away. If you just hang around here, you know, watch pay-per- view, braid your hair and wear a mud mask, Sammy and I should be back by…' He looked up to see Ella gaping at him in indignation, hands on her hips. 'What?'

Ella made a noise of frustration in the back of her throat, irritated further by the fact that Dean had the grace to look confused at her reaction.

'Braid my hair?' She repeated incredulously. 'Mud masks? What do you think I am, a sorority girl?'

'No.' Dean said immediately, glancing at his brother as if to say 'What the hell?'

(Sam merely rubbed the back of his neck self consciously, looking away politely as he pretended to be extremely interested in the wallpaper.)

'Oh really?' Ella asked scornfully. 'I can't believe you wake me up at the crack of dawn to break into a crime scene and then just bring me back here to dump me!'

(A family checking out of the hotel looked at the two of them curiously.)

'Ella, this isn't a game you know, this is a serious investigation.' Dean snapped, firing up at her stubbornness for reasons that were inexplicable even to him…Was it perhaps because she reminded him so much of himself when his own father had refused to let him accompany him on hunting trips?

'I'm not a little girl!' Ella retorted, although realising that perhaps the way she was arguing might cause her to come across as such. 'I could help!'

'You could help, huh? How? You know how to get into morgues and access classified records, do you? You know how to hunt demons?' Dean demanded.

Ella lowered her eyes. 'No.' She muttered, feeling five years old.

'Exactly.' Said Dean briskly, shoving his hands in his pockets and heading toward the door. 'Sam? You comin'?'

'Uh yeah…' Sam looked torn between offering words of sympathy to Ella and following his brother.

'Sam?' Dean repeated impatiently.

'Coming.'

Ella was left alone standing in the lobby, arms crossed, annoyance coursing through her. She was being stupid: she knew it. She felt ridiculously childish yet the injustice of the situation was, to her, as blatantly obvious as Dean's rationality and irritating fatherly protectiveness.

In theory, she knew why he had refused to let her accompany them. It would be stupid for her to think she was even beginning to comprehend hunting. Just because she'd been let in on their secret, helped look up a couple of things in the library and learnt how to load and shoot a gun didn't mean that she would be anything but a burden in the field…In the field? As if she knew technical terms! As if anyone should know technical terms about ghost hunting.

Shaking her head in disbelief she left the lobby and headed to her room.

Maybe it wasn't so much she was annoyed at why Dean had forbade her to come with them, she mused broodingly as she decided she would have breakfast after all. (She got a kick out of room service.) But the fact that he had had authority with her in the first place.

Not that Ella was some hardcore, bad ass rebellious little brat. She wasn't. She was a good girl. Before the fire, she'd been voted a prefect at school…Of course she'd never been inducted. She'd boarded the plane to the US the day school returned from holidays. But she'd never had a 'father figure' in her life. It had always been Ella and Laura. Just the two of them. It wasn't a real-life version of Gilmore Girls or anything. She was no Bambi-eyed Rory although she often suspected her mother was something of a Lorelai. Laura had had a couple of boyfriends and Ella had liked all of them. But they'd never been fatherly, they were simply friends. That was really how she'd assumed it was going to be with Dean too. The first night she'd met him she'd come to the conclusion that it would be a friendship rather than a father daughter relationship. Evidently she'd misjudged how much a priority Dean Winchester put on family.

Family. It was a funny word. Not one that she was particularly fond of after hearing the words 'no living relatives' and 'without family' bandied about at least a hundred times after the fire. Laura had been her family for the first sixteen years of her life. And now it seemed that Sam and Dean would be her family.

A trace of a smirk crossed her face. A family of demon hunters? Man, she sure knew how to pick them.


Dean had made it clear that no conversation was to take place in which the words 'Ella' 'Parenting' 'A little harsh' and 'what's best for her' were used in abundance.

Nonetheless, Sam couldn't resist bringing it up.

'So…that went well.' He began after respectfully letting Dean listen in silence to three Blue Oyster Cult tracks.

'Yeah, for an audition for the Maury Povich show.' Dean replied moodily.

'But dude, you are the father.' Sam grinned in spite of himself, inwardly realising that the amount of trashy TV they watched in their time off was not exactly healthy.

Dean made a particularly rude hand gesture at his brother before saying 'It's for her own good, she can be as pissed at me as she wants, but there is no way I'm letting her get more mixed up in this than she has to be. Dumping her might seem irresponsible but it's sure as hell better than the alternative…'

'We've let people a lot less capable than her become involved in a case.' Sam pointed out.

'Yeah but usually it's something personal for them. Closure. So they can see it with their own eyes.' Clarified Dean matter of factly.

'But maybe-'

'Sam.' Dean said warningly. 'Drop it.'

'Ok.' Sam agreed, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. No further conversation was made as the brothers drove to the county morgue (A rather morbid destination)and so Dean was left to stew in his own thoughts.

Why was he so against Ella helping them? It was almost hypocritical, he knew that. He hadn't been able to get the grin off his face when she'd loaded the shotgun almost effortlessly the day before and he'd found himself feeling ridiculously proud when she had offered to help Sam research at the library. In so many ways it had been so important to him that she accepted this way of life. But in other ways he just wanted to get her as far away from it as was actually possible.

She should live a normal life. She deserved that, as unlikely as such a life was beginning to seem. Hunting was in her blood and if she got a taste of it…Well she could kiss college, a husband and any sense of security goodbye and welcome a life of the unpredictable, the unexplained, being a fugitive and a steady diet of take away and food from gas stations. It was something he shouldn't be wishing on anybody….so why did Dean find himself thinking (with a strange mixture of dread and pride) that Ella could handle it? The glint in her eye when she had protested against being abandoned and the stubbornness in her stance had scared the hell out of him, had made him want to protect her. Be cruel to be kind. But maybe it was simply a struggle against the inevitable?


After a trip to the general store (chocolate after all, cures anything especially boredom, loneliness and frustration) Ella hung around her room for the next several hours. Watching TV, reading, eating and listening to her I-pod.

It was late in the afternoon and she had just started on an enormous bag of M&Ms when the door opened.

'Hey.' Dean greeted as she looked up from the TV.

'Hey…' She said cautiously, uncertain as to whether or not he was mad at her.

'Hoeing into the M&Ms huh?' He grinned, making it clear that they were at a truce for the time being. 'They'd better be peanut.'

She shook her head. 'Mixed bag.' She offered it to him and, not one to say no to food, Dean took a generous handful.

'So where's Sam?' She asked after the two of them had chewed in contemplative silence for a moment.

'Getting his nails done.' Dean replied smirking at his own joke.

Ella gave him a funny look before remarking flippantly. 'You know when I first saw you two I thought you could be a gay couple.'

Dean choked on his M&Ms. 'Why do people always think that??!' He exclaimed defensively.

'Well you are kind of butch.' She told him, grinning. 'You could be overcompensating. You know the macho one, and you said only seconds ago that Sam was getting a manicure.'

'What's this about manicures?'

Father and daughter turned to see Sam, and both cracked into identical smirks. 'Nothing.' They chorused innocently.

Sam raised his eyebrows suspiciously but chose not to comment.

'So, what've you got?' Dean straightened up, quick to change the subject.

'Well, I talked to Bobby,' Sam brushed the hair out of his eyes unconsciously. 'And he said that a silver bullet to the heart should do the trick. It might be called a demon but because it's not in spirit form or possessing anyone, a bullet should be all we need to waste it.'

'Awesome.' Said Dean briskly, crossing to a trunk at the edge of his bed and pulling out a revolver, which he loaded with impressive easiness.

'So you think it's definitely the Jersey devil or whatever it's called?'

'Yep.' Dean confirmed absent-mindedly. 'It's trying to finish the last of the Leeds line. It got good old Darren last night and now it's after the trophy wife's future kid.'

'How come it's taken the thing this long to finish the family line?' Ella went on curiously.

At this point Dean realised it was his daughter who was questioning him and, remembering his stance on not getting her involved, fixed her with a Look.

'What?' She asked defensively. 'I'm allowed to ask questions aren't I?'

Dean opened his mouth as if to argue then merely shrugged, thinking better of it.

'Well I've been doing some digging,' Sam took over filling Ella in as his brother muttered something about food and sauntered out of the room. 'Piecing together sightings and cross referencing them with where the Leeds descendants have been known to live. Turns out the eldest son escaped that night and left Pine Barrens for good, changing his name. Over time he relaxed, as the Jersey Devil didn't show up, but the day before his wife went into labour- the thing showed up.' Ella's eyes widened. 'It came down the chimney but he shot at it and it vanished. Although after that it left them alone, at night on his way home from work he would see it roaming the fields, watching him. Eventually the baby boy grew up, moved away and married.'

'And I'm guessing a similar pattern occurred?'

Sam nodded grimly. 'Except this time it was twins. The thing killed one but the other survived and lived to move away, marry and get his wife pregnant. The pattern has gone on since then- but it's never killed all the children born in a single generation. It'll get a few when they're first born, some years later, but one always lives to keep the family line going.'

'And this time…might be different?'

'Darren Birmingham was an only child. He ran a business in Atlantic County and from what I can tell, never had children because he figured if he died childless, the curse of the Jersey Devil would cease to plague his family. He married Christine Marlowe- Miss Atlantic County and a model for every perverted men's magazine in the U.S. She was after his money and didn't want to lose her looks by having children so the marriage was convenient for both of them. Until about nine months ago, when Christine found out she was pregnant.'

'I can't imagine that went too well.'

'Birmingham freaked out. He packed up and left Atlantic County, buying an old farmhouse in a little place called Goldstone. For financial reasons, Christine refused to divorce him no matter how much he begged her. In the end they compromised, she agreed to live with her brother until the baby was born while Birmingham shut himself up on his farm, praying that their separation would be enough and that the jersey devil would be satisfied in just finishing him off and not going after the baby.'

'He knew it was coming for him?' Ella whispered.

'We think so. That'd explain why he refused to give us any details when we talked to him yesterday. He knew it would come for him eventually…he might have shot at it the first time out of fear but he knew the thing would keep trying until it killed him.'

'But you think it will come for the baby?' asked Ella, horrified.

'We can't take any chances. You saw her, Christine seriously looked like she was going to give birth any minute. Dean talked to her brother and he said the two of them are staying at a cabin on the property for the night to sort out the will. We think it will come tonight.' Sam glanced at the sun that was now beginning to set in the sky. 'And when it does,' He went on. 'We'll be ready for it.'


Cue dramatic music! Actually, cue reviews. I don't mean to be one of those whiny fan fic writers but if I get over twenty reviews for this chapter I swear the next one will be up sooner. I promise!

Lots of love Butterfly Dreamer