Chapter 10

Alton, West Virginia was small, affluent and quiet, with gently curving residential streets full of identical white-painted houses. The brothers had wandered around, asking passers-by where the Ropley family lived, with apologetic smiles and claiming to be distant relations, and the information had been readily yielded. In the early afternoon, they found themselves seated in the Impala around the corner from the tidy family home, contemplating their next move.

'I don't see why it can't just disappear to escape these bullets just like it did in Salvation with the Colt,' Sam argued, studying his fingers with apparent interest. Surprised that they were still when he felt like they should be trembling.

'Could we trap it? ...that symbol we used to trap Meg,' Dean suggested, his voice quieter than usual but under control. Now that they were here, it was easier to focus.

'Probably. I mean... it would work... but I don't think this demon would just walk into it… and anyway, we'd somehow have to get into the house in advance to draw the symbol on the floor or ceiling. And that family might freak out if they see that we've drawn it, and rub it off.'

Dean tilted his head in acceptance. 'Good point.' After a pause he added: 'Would the symbol still work if it was… umm… under the carpet, or something?'

'Yes, it should.'

'Well, how do we get in the house?'

Sam bit his lip – it was another problem, but at least this was familiar territory. 'So… the truth… not an option?'

'All things considered…no.'

Another silence filled the Impala as both Winchester brothers considered the problem.

'We could say we were there to… mend… something,' Sam suggested weakly.

'You have to call out repair men, Sam; people get suspicious if they just turn up.'

Yet another silence. Eventually, Dean brightened up, and selected an ID carefully from his collection. A few minutes later, they were ringing the doorbell.

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'Good afternoon, ma'am,' Dean greeted the young brunette who opened the door with a bright smile. 'We're from the wildlife service.' The ID was well-faked, so he held it up long enough for her to read thoroughly. Look, I'm clearly trustworthy. 'Residents in your area have been complaining of a problem with wasps. Nests have been found in three houses close by, and we've been dispatched to check that they haven't resettled in any of the other homes on the street.' He waved a hand to indicate himself and Sam, still smiling in what he hoped was a friendly but professional manner.

She smiled back, all but convinced. 'You don't have any equipment,' she observed, not entirely sure what sort of equipment would be needed to dispose of a wasps' nest, but vaguely aware that there should be some.

'Well, at this stage we just need to search the house. Most likely the herd has moved on, but, you know, just to be safe…'

'Yes, of course.'

'Is this a good time?'

'Yeah, sure. Come in. I'll be in the kitchen there, give me a yell if you need anything.'

'Thank you.'

As they passed the door, Sam observed that the baby was secured in a plastic chair, gurgling happily as it watched its mother cooking. Good, the room will be empty…

Upstairs, out of earshot, Sam turned to his brother accusingly.

'A herd of wasps, Dean?'

'Hey, it worked, didn't it?' Dean hissed back.

Sam rolled his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief at what Dean could get away with when talking to women. It never ceased to amaze him.

They had to move some furniture in order to get the carpet up in the sky-blue nursery. They couldn't access the area right beside the cot without taking all the furniture out the room, so they had to settle for a spot several metres away from where the baby would be sleeping. Despite their caution, the young mother called up the stairs when she heard the racket they were making as they shifted a bookcase.

'Is everything alright?'

Dean walked out into the hallway to reassure her, leaving Sam sketching carefully on the exposed floorboards.

'Oh, yeah. Just checking all the corners… for... wasps. We're nearly finished, actually. Pretty sure you got nothing to worry about.' Except that all this could be just so much ashes by tomorrow, including you. He shuddered at the thought of her plump, happy face losing everything, having her family torn apart like the Alresfords, back in Georgia. Like the Winchesters.

'Are you ok?'

'Huh?'

'You want some water, or anything? You looked… kinda pale, for a moment there.'

'Oh… thanks, but I'm fine.'

He smiled at her again, but his trademark grin had lost some of its wattage. He disappeared back into the nursery, and found Sam easing the carpet back into place over the chalk lines.

'Is it done?' Dean hissed.

'Yeah.'

'You sure it's right?'

'Positive.'

'We can't let it win this one, Sam… can't let it take this family.'

Sam looked up at his brother's anguished face. He thought of the amount of damage the demon had done over the years. He remembered Roger Alresford, standing trial for murdering his wife and daughter. We can't let it destroy any more lives. 'And we won't,' he added aloud.

He studied Dean's face, and watched as the complicated expression of suffering turned into something like determination.

'We won't,' Dean echoed, in a bare whisper.

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After they left the house, there was little to do other than wait. Dean emptied and reloaded his gun, just to be sure. A couple of hours later, he checked it again. Even after that, it took some effort not to keep looking every few minutes, just to be sure. Sam, too, was restless and nervous. He fidgeted incessantly, tried to read but failed to concentrate. One way or another, something told him it would be over tonight, and the waiting was unbearable – having the end in sight, but just out of reach, with nothing to do other than sit tight until the moment came.

They watched as the young woman's husband arrived home and greeted his family with warm, affectionate smiles. Long hours late, darkness fell. The young couple put the baby to bed together and then helped each other cook, finally settling to relax in front of the TV. The lights in the house were extinguished one by one, until only a couple remained. The Winchesters, watching the house's windows from the safety of the car, were all but holding their breath. In Georgia, it had all been over by ten. It could be here at any moment. Minutes passed slowly, each one charged and uncomfortable with tension.

'I guess maybe it's not coming tonight,' Sam suggested eventually, sighing heavily. 'She didn't say exactly how old her baby was… or we could have the wrong house.'

'It's the right house,' Dean replied, frowning. 'But it could be the wrong night,' he admitted.

'It's not,' Sam answered suddenly, his voice catching painfully in his throat. Dean spun round, taking in the flickering lights in the windows of the shadowy house. He felt like he should offer some words of encouragement or advice before going into battle, but he didn't have enough breath in his throat to form words, so he only nodded, trying to convey the same message in a brief look.

The brothers sprinted towards the house. Dean thanked whatever God might be watching when he found the door unlocked. The husband, slumped in front of the TV, leapt up with an angry yell when two strangers burst into his house uninvited.

'What the hell?' he demanded.

'Please – we don't have time to explain, but we want to help – please just trust us,' Sam tried to soothe him breathlessly.

'I don't need your help, get out of my house!' the man objected furiously.

A scream from upstairs contradicted him, and both brothers sprinted towards the stairs, followed closely by the clumsy footsteps of the confused, frightened man. In the sky-blue nursery, a familiar scene was being played out. The demon, yellow eyed, grey faced and grinning, standing by the cot, looking down at the helpless baby which was lying beside it and wailing unheeded into the stunned silence. The young woman from earlier was standing immobile up against the wall, her friendly face twisted into a mask of horror.

The Winchesters slipped past her into the room. Dean's hand moved too fast to see, seizing the gun from the back of his jeans, but as he aimed the demon finally spun round, stepping towards him, waving a hand angrily. Dean found himself on the floor, struck by an invisible, powerful force which left him winded, his gun sliding away across the carpet.

'You're back for more, are you?' it jeered, in a voice which could never have belonged to any human person. 'I thought I'd given you enough to think about, but you just keep coming back.'

Dean tried to scramble to his feet, but was hit suddenly by a peal of agony more intense than anything he had known, slicing through every cell of his body at once, and he dropped back to the floor with a cry. The pain was gone as soon as it had come, leaving no visible damage. Dean rolled over and crawled towards his discarded gun.

Although its attention seemed to be on Dean, the demon had not released the young woman from her intangible bonds. Her husband, who had been watching from the doorway, had backed away into the hall, and was clinging to the stair rail as though he would collapse if he let it go. Sam stood frozen, aiming his own gun at the demon from across the room, but unable to get a clear shot at its eye from his current position and aware that if he shot it before it was secured by the symbol, it could disappear in the time it took the bullet to leave the barrel.

The demon advanced slowly on Dean, who was propped on his elbows in the corner, blocked by the wall from backing away any further. 'Looks like I might pick up a Winchester as well as this kid tonight,' it taunted, glancing over its shoulder at Sam. 'Your daddy was doing better than this,' it added twisting its lips into a cruel smile. 'He'd nearly got me back in Georgia, had a plan and everything. But he started freaking out when the lights in his hovel kept flickin' on and off hours after the storm was finished. I've used his body before, you'll remember, so it was easy to get inside him again, I know how he works. He was thinking of his boys when he cut his own throat. He'd want you to know that. His body was dead when it walked into that house. I left it there so he could be reunited with his boys one last time.' It seemed to be enjoying its bragging, speaking rapidly in a charged whisper, still grinning so manically that its smile bisected its face.

Dean looked up at it with hard eyes as it began to take another step towards him, raising a hand to conduct another attack. But the attack never came, and the demon halted abruptly, its malicious grin freezing and then crumbling into ugly, hissing fury.

The woman fell to her knees sobbing as she was released. Dean climbed slowly to his feet, picking up his gun as he did so, and straightening until he stood eye to eye with the thing that had killed both his parents, less than a foot between them.

Across the room, bright lights exploded in Sam's head, and he dropped his weapon, clutching both hands to his temples. Uncertainty flickered in Dean's eyes.

'I can still get him… in his head, he's always been vulnerable to me,' spat the creature, glaring pure hatred into Dean's eyes.

'Can't get anything if you're dead,' Dean spat back, matching the barrel of his gun to the beam of dim yellow light emitted by the creature's eye. He fired, and the shot rang out, deafening over the baby's wailing and its mother's sobs, cancelling out all other sound.

For a second, Dean wondered if it had worked as the demon stood whole before him. But the yellow lights faded and went out, and then the grey face and shadowy body disintegrated and crumbled into dust at his feet.

A sense of the surreal took over Dean, as he stood staring into the ashes. After all this, have we really come to this moment? He wondered, stunned. He couldn't remember a time when the creature hadn't been a persistent threat, in the background, an ever-present fear. Could it really be lying in ashes on a sky-blue carpet?

Across the room, Sam was straightening from a crouch, his face full of shock and a kind of demented happiness.

Is it over?

Yes, it's over.

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Really, really hope you liked this chapter. Epilogue to come, just to tie up loose ends, then we're done. Review, please!

xx