FAITH PART 3

Alice rolled her eyes to the back of her head as she moved around the old Cromwell cabin frantically. She tucked her phone between her ear and shoulder while pulling old boxes and books off the shelves. Ones that Cromwell hunters from generations ago had collected.

"I told you already, Dean. I'll make it back on time before the next service," she said while grumbling into the phone.

Dean didn't sound all that happy and relayed it through their call. "What do you mean you're gonna make it back? You're all the way in Vermont right now. That's at least a 24-hour drive."

"Then I'll make it a 10-hour drive. Are you happy now?" Alice hissed while dropping her things onto the couch to unpack. "You tend to forget that I drive a racing bike. I'll make it back in time," she said with much determination, without a shadow of a doubt in her voice.

Dean groaned. "Why are you even in Vermont in the first place? You didn't explain anything and just took off."

Alice smirked. "Did I worry you?"

"Yes!" Dean exclaimed so loudly that Alice had to pull her phone away from her ear for a moment.

Alice sighed and shook her head. "Good grief. Don't worry about it. I'm just making some precautions. We are dealing with a reaper, after all."

"I get that, but…" Seeing that there was no winning this argument, Dean decided to give up. He didn't see the point since they were so far away right now. Bottom line, he just wanted to make sure she was alright. "Just promise me you'll make it back in time, ok?

"I will, I will. I got to go. You and Sam don't do anything rash until I get back."

"Right." Dean finished and hung up.

Alice tossed her phone to the couch and finally got to work. She began by picking up an old leatherbound book that had seen more than a couple centuries of wear. It was rough all the way around, and the pages inside were filled with obscure text that looked practically alien. She ran her fingers over the pages that were withered with age and use.

"Ok. Now where do I start…"

The boys waited in the church parking lot as masses of people walked by them and headed inside the tent. They thought they would have to go inside alone until they heard the familiar sound of a bike engine. Sam and Dean looked up and saw Alice's Thunderace flying down the road with a loud roar. She swiftly pulled into the parking lot and stopped right beside the Impala.

"Told you I'd make it." Alice laughed while shutting off her bike and pulling her helmet off.

Sam looked down at his watch and scoffed. "By like a couple minutes. What were you doing back in Vermont?"

Alice waved his question off and walked over to them. "Just some prep work. Don't worry about it. Let's just focus on trying to find the spell book."

"Is there one?" Sam asked.

She nodded as they began to head towards the tent. "Has to be."

"Alright. You and Sam see if you can find it," Dean said and took a peek at his watch. "Hurry up, too. The service starts in fifteen minutes. I'll try to stall Roy."

On their way to the tent, they passed by the man from the other day. The one who claimed Roy's healing abilities were fake.

"Roy LeGrange is a fraud. He's no healer," he said and handed them three leaflets.

"Amen Brother," Dean said.

"You keep up the good work," Sam followed up and gladly took the paper.

Alice and Sam waited at the corner of the house and watched Roy come outside with Sue Ann on his arm. She guided him gently down the steps and towards the tent where everyone was already waiting. Once they were gone, Alice and Sam got to work and snuck in through an unlocked window. They made sure to be swift about it and got inside without being detected.

The inside was just as Alice remembered it to be. Which was off-putting, to say the least. Now that she could closely inspect what was inside, Alice would never have guessed that it was the home of people with sinister intent. In fact, it was so ordinary that it was eerie.

Alice gestured for Sam to follow. "Come on. I think the study is this way."

Sam picked the lock as fast as he could, and they scurried inside, shutting the door behind them.

The room was full of old, dusty bookshelves that looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Even the air had quite a musty smell that made Alice crinkle her nose up.

"Alice," Sam called out when he noticed something odd. All the books on the shelves had a thick layer of dust in front of it. All except for one book that looked like been pulled out recently. "Bingo?"

Alice snickered and patted his shoulder. "Pretty clever, Sammy."

Sam pulled out the book and flipped through the pages. There wasn't anything suspicious about it though, and it was just a normal book about Christian history. Sam frowned with disappointment when Alice quickly tapped him on the shoulder to grab his attention. They both looked back to the shelf and peered into the small space. Alice reached her hand to the way back of the shelf and pulled out a small black book that looked pretty old.

"That it?" Sam asked.

"Hopefully."

The moment Alice opened the book, she knew she had them. Inside were pictures of skeletal reapers and pages with wooden crosses on them. The same ones they saw back at the tent. There were also newspaper articles stuck inside with the faces of the recently deceased on it. There was Marshall Hall, an openly gay teacher, and a woman who was an abortion rights advocate. Also, there was a third article with a familiar face that Alice and the boys had met before. It was about David Wright. The man who was handing leaflets out by the tent, claiming Roy to be a fraud.

Alice's smirk widened. "Oh, yeah. Bingo." She handed the book and articles over to Sam and walked away to pull out her phone. She dialed Dean quickly and waited for the call to go through.

"Alice?" Dean's voice cut through on the second ring. "What have you got?"

"Figured it out. They're choosing victims that they deem as immoral. And I'm pretty sure we know who's next on the list. Remember that protestor?"

"What, the guy in the parking lot?" he questioned.

"Yeah. Sam and I will find him, but you gonna make sure Roy doesn't heal anyone, alright?" She didn't give him time to ask any more questions before hanging up and looking back to Sam's worried face.

"You think he's still here?" he asked.

"I hope so."

Sam and Alice wasted no time getting back outside and headed for the parking lot. They split up and began to look for the man all over the sea of cars, trying to find him before death could. Yet, It wasn't long into the search when they heard a terrifyed scream echoing out.

"HELP!

Alice and Sam peeked their heads above the cars and spotted each other a couple of rows away. They looked in the direction from where the voice came from and quickly ran over to it. They found David Wright scurrying around the cars, often looking over his shoulders like something was chasing after him.

"Help! Help me, please!" he screamed, nearly running right into Sam when he and Alice rounded the corner.

"Where is he?" Alice shouted.

"Right there!" David cried out while grabbing Alice's shoulder and hiding behind her.

Alice looked around frantically but saw nothing in front of her, despite David's frantic and wild pointing. "What do you mean 'Right there'!" She didn't doubt that David was seeing something, but that didn't help her and Sam at all. "Go! go, go, go!" She quickly shoved David and Sam ahead of her to try and elude the invisible reaper.

After weaving between cars for a couple of minutes, things started to quiet down, and David didn't look as weary as before. He cautiously walked around the parking lot but didn't see the reaper anywhere. Sam and Alice gave each other a perplexed look when they suddenly heard a racket coming from the tent. They looked up and saw people start to file out. A second later, Sam's phone started to ring, and he quickly picked it up to hear his brother's voice on the other end.

"I did it. I stopped Roy," Dean said, sounding like he was out of breath.

Sam nodded his head and gave Alice a thumbs up. "David, I think it's ok."

David nodded and turned back around, only to run into the hollow face of the reaper reaching his cold hands out to him.

"No!" David cried out and tried to back away but was trapped between the cars with nowhere to go. He was completely at the mercy of the rogue reaper now.

"Dean it didn't work. The reaper's still coming!" Sam shouted into the phone and watched David collapse to his knees, the life starting to drain from his pale face and eyes. "I'm telling you it didn't work."

Alice ran up to Sam and snatched the phone from him. "If it's not Roy, then it's Sue Ann. Dean, where the hell is Sue Ann?!"

Dean paused for a moment before hissing into the phone. "I got her," he said and hung up half a second later.

Not long after, the reaper suddenly had a look of clarity on his face and pulled his hand away from David. Looking momentarily confused, he walked away from the frightened man and disappeared into nothingness. Sam and Alice looked like they could breathe again when they saw the color returning to David's face, already knowing that Dean had stopped Sue Ann.

Sam reached down and helped David to his feet. "I got you. I got you."

David let out a sigh of relief and held his throbbing chest that only a moment ago felt like it was being torn open. "Thank God."

Dean did little to resist the cops as they roughly dragged him from the tent. While he did manage to stop Sue Ann's spell, she ended up crying out for help and claimed he was attacking her.

"I just don't understand. After everything we've done." Sue Ann sighed while stepping out of the tent. "After Roy healed Alice. I'm just very very disappointed."

There were a million things Dean wanted to say to her at that moment, but he knew that it was better not to. He was already on thin ice with the local cops, so he reluctantly decided to hold back his words and just glare.

Sue Ann shook her head. "You can let him go. I'm not gonna press charges. The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit," she said to the cops.

"That's good to hear. Then you would've had to deal with me by yourself…"

Sue Ann jumped away when she heard a familiar cold voice at her back. She swiftly turned around and stared straight at Alice's chilling blue eyes, which looked like icy daggers. She towered over the poor woman and had a relaxed but intimidating atmosphere about her that made it hard to breathe.

"And no one wants that..." Alice finished with a rough draw to her voice. She stared down Sue Ann until the woman couldn't stand it anymore and quickly walked away, leaving her with the cops. "She's not pressing charges, right? Then let him go. He's mine." she said and gestured Dean over.

The cops gave Alice a suspicious look but did decide to let Dean go. They released their hold and shoved him over in her direction.

"We catch you round here again son, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?" one of the cops said before walking off.

Dean scoffed and adjusted his jacket. "Fear of God..." he said and glanced at Alice. "Got it."

Alice raised a brow. "Why did you have to look at me when you say that?" She turned her head up and saw Layla walking over to them with an upset look on her face.

"Layla?" Dean said, stiffening nervously.

"Why would you do that? And it could have been my only chance," she spoke to him softly.

"Layla," Alice spoke up with widening eyes. She felt her heart start to sink when she realized the person Roy was supposed to heal today was Layla. Alice had to tighten her jaw a little to keep her voice steady. "Layla...Roy's not a healer."

Layla immediately turned her glassy eyes to her. "You knew what he did?" she said, devastated to learn that Alice was part of this. "He healed you."

Alice shook her head. "I know, I know. Layla...I know this doesn't seem fair, but Roy's not the answer. He's just not..." she said, having to close up her heart to save herself from the heartbreak.

Layla bit down on her quivering lips and closed her eyes. She reached out to Alice's shoulder and squeezed them tightly. "Goodbye, Alice. Dean." she said in a single, heartbroken whisper before turning around and walking away. She paused for a moment though and looked back at them. "I wish you two luck. I really do."

Dean's voice cracked a little. "Same to you."

Alice lowered her head and began to pull Dean away. They walked out into the parking lot to meet up with Sam, but as they passed by Roy and Sue Ann, they heard him saying something to Layla's mother.

"Private session tonight, no interruptions. I give you my word, I'll heal your daughter," Roy promised.

Dean kept his head down as they walked past them. "Did you hear?" he said while tugging on Alice's arm.

Alice nodded sharply. "Yeah…I did."

"So Roy really believes," Sam said while sitting beside Alice on the bed.

Dean shook his head. "I don't think he has any idea what his wife's doing." He huffed and glanced over to Alice. "I guess your hunch was right."

Alice sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Makes sense if you think about it," she said with a drained voice. "Her husband was dying, so she got scared. She wanted to save him through any means and…dug a bit too far into the dark stuff."

"Dark stuff?" Dean questioned with a cocked brow.

Sam reached into his jacket and pulled out the book he and Alice found inside the house. "Found this. Hidden in their library," he said and handed it to Dean so he could have a look. "It's ancient. Written by a priest who went dark side. There's a binding spell in here for trapping a reaper."

"Must be a hell of a spell."

"Yeah. You gotta build a black alter with seriously dark stuff. Bones, human blood." Sam sighed and looked somewhat defeated. "To cross a line like that, a preacher's wife. Black magic. Murder. Evil."

"Desperation," Dean cut in, the reason finally dawning on him. "Alice was right. She just wanted to save her husband."

"By cheating death, literally."

"Yeah but Roy's alive, so why is she still using the spell?" Dean asked with a slight grimace.

Alice spoke up. "She probably gotten it into her head that she's doing God's work. Sending the reaper to kill those she thinks are immoral."

Sam shook his head. "We gotta break that binding spell."

Dean nodded in agreement while flipping through the pages. He stopped at a familiar picture and turned it around to show Sam and Alice. "You know Sue Ann had a coptic cross like this. When she dropped it, the reaper backed off."

"Then that's our ticket," Alice said, reaching out for the book. Dean kept the page open and handed it back. "The cross is probably the thing that's linking them. Finding it and breaking it will release the reaper." Her lips began to turn down into a frown. "We gotta do it fast though. He's healing Layla tonight."