Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; the original concept of this story was inspired by 'To Hell & Back' by EventRider87, but I've added my own spin to things and have received EventRider87's permission to use their idea for this
Feedback: Much appreciated
The Corrupted Innocent
In a strange way, Bela was actually starting to get a better idea of why Sam and Dean appreciated their lives. She missed the comfort of her old safehouses, but as she drove along the road towards the town where Sam and Dean currently were, she had to admit that there was something appealing about travelling around for so long, seeing America from the road in a way that so few people did…
She decided not to give that any more thought; she was going into a potentially dangerous situation with a trio of hunters with a bizarre familial connection, this wasn't the time to reflect on the opportunities presented by her current lifestyle.
With the Colt now in her possession once again, she had to admit that she was almost looking forward to seeing what Sam and Dean were up to. When she and Deanna had come out of the Devil's Trap room after releasing Crowley, Bela had found a message on the answering machine revealing that Sam and Dean were investigating the death of a man named Luke Wallace in a small town; apparently, Luke Wallace had been found dead as a result of eating candy containing razor blades. Sam was fairly sure that they were only dealing with a witch rather than a demon, but considering how demons and witches could collaborate, along with the relatively close proximity of Halloween, it seemed like as good an opportunity as any to return the Colt to the Winchesters and give Deanna a chance to stretch her legs in every sense of the phrase.
"Some things never change," Deanna said, smiling as the car drove through the town streets, looking wistfully at the groups of children walking along the sidewalks, some dressed in costumes already.
"Did you… I mean, your daughter…?" Bela began, trailing off as she suddenly found herself unsure what she was asking; from what Deanna had told her, she had ended up in the hunting lifestyle after Samuel saved her life, so she'd probably celebrated Halloween as a child, but how would a family of hunters have regarded it?
"We allowed it sometimes," Deanna said with a smile. "Samuel preferred to focus on his hunts, but I enjoyed those moments when we could give Mary some kind of normal life; after all, where's the point in going to all this effort to protect other people if we're not going to allow her the chance to experience what we're trying to protect?"
"Good philosophy," Bela said with a smile. "When did you tell her about it, anyway?"
"When she was around… ten, I think," Deanna said with a smile at the memory. "I think she had some idea that things weren't right at first- it's hard to explain how a dry-cleaner ends up breaking his arm on a business trip, and we gave her a few odd warnings when hunts came too close to home, after all- but that was the first time we definitely told her that monsters were real."
"Having a home base probably helped that, I assume," Bela said, nodding reflectively at that news; most hunters she knew tended to remain on the move a lot- Bobby being one of the few exceptions- but the Campbells staying in one place would certainly make it easier for them to give Mary a life outside of hunting, no matter how hard it might be for her to relate to some of her peers.
"Yes, it did," Deanna said, before she glanced between the street-sign and a note in her hands and smiled. "Down this street; that should be where their hotel is."
Nodding in acknowledgement, Bela turned the car into the indicated street, continuing along it for a while until she found herself in front of the hotel that the Winchesters had identified as their current residence. As she pulled up into the parking lot, Bela immediately headed for the slot right beside the distinctive black form of the Impala, stopping the car and getting out as she checked that the Colt was still in her pocket. With Deanna behind her, she walked up to the Winchesters' room, knocking politely on the door and waiting for a moment until Dean opened the door.
"Wh- Bela?" he said, looking at her in surprise, his eyes widening further when he saw Deanna standing behind her.
"Surprised?" Bela said, smiling at him as she and Deanna walked into the room, Deanna smiling over at Sam as he looked up at the new arrivals. "We got your message about this hunt, and it occurred to me that you might need a bit more than your usual arsenal if you're going to deal with the seals."
"So?" Sam asked, looking at her inquiringly.
"So," Bela said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the gun that had caused her such trouble with the Winchesters, "I thought you might like this."
Dean blinked.
"Wh- the Colt?" he said, staring at the weapon in surprise for a moment before he glared at Bela. "Hold on; you said-"
"That it was long gone with the buyer?" Bela said, smiling at him. "That was true, but I managed to… make contact with the buyer and get him to change his mind."
"How?" Sam asked, looking at her in surprise. "I mean, Lilith wouldn't-"
"It wasn't Lilith," Bela said, hoping that directness could allow her to get past the initial hostility she was bound to receive once she revealed this particular news. "It was the head of the crossroad demons; he's known as Crowley."
"Uh… I'm sorry; you got this gun back from the head of the crossroad demons?" Dean said, his glare replaced by shock at this unexpected news. "What happened to-?"
"I didn't make a deal for it; he just… gave it to me," Bela said, shrugging slightly as Dean looked sceptically at her; she had expected that he'd doubt her word, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt to feel as though she'd lost what little trust she'd managed to gain. "I mean, we had to torture him a bit to make it look convincing, but-"
"OK, whether or not it was a deal isn't important right now; what is important is clarifying why a demon would give you the Colt?" Sam asked suspiciously. "Doesn't he know what we're trying to do?"
"He does," Deanna put in. "That's why he did it."
"Uh… sorry, I'm missing something here," Sam said, looking over at his grandmother in confusion. "You're saying… a demon wants us to stop the seals being broken?"
"His explanation made sense," Deanna replied.
"What was it?" Dean asked, joining Sam in looking pointedly at their grandmother.
"Basically, once Lucifer gets out and destroys humanity as proof that his father failed when creating us, he's going to destroy the demons as further flawed creations," Bela explained. "He asked us to give him a few convincing wounds to ensure that he could claim he'd been forced into giving it up, but his fundamental goal was clear; he wants us to keep the Seals unbroken and maintain the status quo."
"Huh," Dean said, looking sceptically at the gun for a moment, before he shrugged and slipped it into the pocket of his own jacket as he turned back to Bela, clearly deciding to table that discussion for the moment. "Got bullets?"
"Naturally," Bela said, tossing him the box of ammunition before she looked more curiously at him. "So, now that you've got that, what are we looking into?"
"We?" Dean said. "You-"
"It's a witch," Sam interjected, indicating the spread-out remains of a small hex-bag and indicating the object's contents to the two women. "Goldthread, an herb that's been extinct for two hundred years. This silver thing is Celtic, and I don't mean some new age knock-off; it looks like the real deal, like six-hundred-years-old real. We even have the century-old metacarpal bone of a newborn baby here"
"Yeah, that's disgusting," Dean said grimly.
"You're thinking a witch?" Deanna asked.
"It would have to be a pretty powerful one to pull off something like this," Sam noted. "More juice than we've ever dealt with, that's for sure."
"And older than anything I encountered with your grandfather," Deanna noted, solemnly studying the contents before them for a moment. "Do you have any suspects?"
"Not yet," Dean said grimly. "I've been over the victim's history; guy was so vanilla, he makes vanilla seem spicy. We just heard something about another case that we were going to check out-"
"Good," Bela said, smiling at him as she made an impulsive decision. "Let me just get changed, and-"
"Changed?" Dean repeated, looking at her in surprise.
"Well, I don't exactly look very 'FBI' like this, do I?" Bela said, indicating her current casual attire. "I've had a few suits in storage in case something came up; just let me get them-"
"Hold on; what makes you think you're coming with me?" Dean asked, surprise being replaced by a pointed stare as he looked at her. "Sam and I can handle this-"
"But you don't have to do it alone, Dean," Deanna said, looking sincerely at her grandson. "I know it's probably hard for you to adjust- Hell, I'm still getting used to all this- but we're all here now, so we have to focus on what matters, and what matters is using everything we have to put those… things down before they hurt any more innocent people."
Looking over at his grandmother, Dean stared thoughtfully at her for a moment before a tentative smile began to spread across his face.
"Good point," he said, before he looked over at Sam. "So, you up for reading with Grandma?"
Not wanting to give Dean a chance to change his mind, Bela had quickly changed into her suit jacket and skirt in the bathroom of the Winchesters' current motel room before joining him in the Impala to head to the latest crime scene. In this case, the location was a Halloween party where a girl bobbing for apples had ended up drowning in water that apparently became boiling hot while her head was stuck in it. As she and Dean entered the basement where the party had been held, she noted that forensics techs were already looking over what was almost certainly the tub in question, while a police officer talked to a girl in a stereotypical 'slutty cheerleader' outfit; judging by what Bela heard as she walked down, the girl had been a friend of the victim.
"I'll take the girl," Bela said, looking pointedly at Dean for a moment before she walked over to the officer and the girl.
"Who-?" the officer said, looking at her in confusion.
"Agent Lucy Murray," Bela said, showing her FBI pass to the man with a casual smile. "I just have a couple of questions that this young woman may be able to help me with."
"Uh… sure," the officer said, stepping back to allow Bela to talk to the girl.
"This might seem unorthodox, but I have to ask," Bela said, briefly glancing over at where Dean was checking the sofa for hex bags before focusing her attention on the girl, "did your friend know a man named Luke Wallace?"
"Uh… who's Luke Wallace?" the girl asked.
"He's connected to another case; that's all I'm at liberty to disclose at this time," Bela said, nodding briefly at the girl before movement in Dean's direction prompted her to look up, the older hunter smiling as he held up a hex bag from beneath the sofa.
"I don't know who that is," the girl replied, shrugging slightly apologetically at Bela.
"And no idea why anyone would… have anything against your friend?" Bela asked (She was never that good at this part of hunting; she understood adults so much better than children who'd never experienced even a fraction of what she'd had to endure…).
The girl's negative reply at least gave Bela a reason to cut that conversation short, but it also left her with nothing else to go on in the current hunt; confirming where not to look might be useful, but she'd still prefer to know where she might start looking…
"So," Dean said, looking at Sam and Deanna in surprise after he and Bela had returned from the latest crime scene, "you're thinking that these vics weren't targeted for personal reasons?"
"No," Deanna confirmed with a smile, tapping a book on the table in front of her. "While Sam and I were going over possible reasons for targeting these victims in this manner, I found reference to a particular ritual that can only be performed in the three days leading up to midnight of the final day of the final harvest."
"Which is today, correct?" Bela asked.
"Precisely," Deanna said, nodding at the other woman. "According to the book, three blood sacrifices over that period will culminate in the practitioner summoning the demon Samhain to this plane."
"Who?" Dean asked.
"The demon of Halloween," Bela said, her mind flashing back to some of her early research into demon mythology when she was originally trying to determine the nature of her deal. "According to the Celts, the veil between the realms of the living and the dead were at their thinnest on October 31st, which would traditionally allow Samhain to freely walk the world."
"Exactly," Deanna said. "People wore masks to hide from him, left out sweets to appease him, and carved faces into pumpkins to worship him; he was exorcised centuries ago, but the traditions remained even after people stopped believing in the reason for them."
"OK," Dean said, nodding in understanding. "So, even though it's been kiddie-fied over the years, we're thinking some witch wants to raise Samhain and take back the night?"
"Basically, yes," Deanna said, nodding back at her oldest grandson. "On the bright side, this ritual can only be performed every six hundred years, but unfortunately the time for the next potential opening is this year, so if we can't find the witch or the third sacrifice before tomorrow night…"
"We've got a problem," Dean said grimly, picking up the book and glancing at the sketches within it. "That's a lot of death and destruction for one demon."
"That's part of the legend, unfortunately," Sam put in. "Once he's raised, Samhain can raise other kinds of evil; the book suggests everything from ghosts and zombies to start with, but by the end of the night we'd have everything we've ever hunted all gathered in one place."
Bela definitely didn't like the sound of that; she'd come here expecting a relatively simple hunt to give her and Deanna a chance to get back in the game, and now they were dealing with something this big?
"I suppose we haven't got any ideas why our witch targeted these two?" Sam asked.
"A teenage girl and a grown man who doesn't work at the school?" Dean said, shaking his head. "Nothing so far."
"Didn't Mr Wallace have a young son?" Deanna asked.
"Yeah, so?" Dean said, looking over at his grandmother.
"Have you considered asking who he and his wife hired as a babysitter?" Deanna pointed out.
Noting the stares she was attracting after that question, Deanna looked suddenly awkward. "Oh, has babysitting stopped being a thing now? Your mother used to do it in her later years of school- she liked spending time with children-"
"No, it's still a thing, it's just…" Sam said, shaking his head as he looked over at Dean. "How did we not think of that?"
"Sometimes you miss the obvious," Bela said, although her tone made it clear that she was including herself among the people who missed the obvious. "A teenage girl would have access to both locations; the only thing we need to work out now is which girl…"
"I've got a list of people who were attending that party from the cop's witness statements; just give me a few moments…" Sam said, pulling his laptop over to him and rapidly tapping through a few files before he found what he was looking for. "Here we are; according to school records, one of the students at the party, Tracy, was recently suspended from school for a violent altercation with a teacher."
"Something to work with, anyway," Dean said, glancing at the photograph accompanying the record Sam had pulled up with a smile. "So, we're dealing with a centuries-old witch posing as a teenage cheerleader, and we've got an address; how do we do this?"
AN: Anyone care to guess where Bela's alias came from?