Chapter Seven

The hotel room was dark except for the single lamp on the desk that was turned on, the old lightbulb casting a yellowed glow over the rickety table and the dusty pages of the thick book. A half drunk glass bottle of beer glimmered in the light, a small ring of condensation spreading underneath it, small droplets of water sliding down its smooth sides. Bobby Singer stared at the book, quietly intimidated by its very existence. He'd been procrastinating opening the book for about two hours now, always finding something else to do that would give him more time to ignore the tiny amulet staring at him from across the room. If he had been in his home, he could have kept himself busy for days cleaning up, scrubbing the kitchen down, buying groceries, dusting off his vast library, redoing the warding, even cleaning out his basement.

But in the hotel room, where it was just him in the book, there was only so much he could do before he had to force himself to sit down in front of it, flicking the lamp on and tapping his fingers on the wooden table. "Angels, Demons, and the Creatures Between" was a book Bobby had not used very often except for the occasional hunter calling about a demon problem. Before, Bobby would have scoffed at the idea of angels or any other "between" creature, but now, he wasn't so sure. After all, if demons were real, didn't that mean that angels were real too? Going down that path made his head hurt, made him have to open his mind and look beyond what he knew and find something else, something apparently divine. Although the angels could be real, Bobby wanted to believe that they weren't, because if they were, then he and a shit load of other people on the planet were probably wondering why the actual fuck God and his children hadn't stepped up to save people or stop suffering, and damn, didn't that just open up an entirely new can of worms?

The amulet seemed like it was mocking him, slowly rocking back and forth from where it hunt out of the book. Taking a deep breath, unable to put this off any longer, Bobby used his fingers to find the page the amulet had marked and open the book, thumb tracing the string of the necklace before he focused on the words of the first paragraph.

Reapers are angels that serve Death, assisting in maintaining the Natural Order. The servants of Death are neutral, meaning that they do not have any affiliation with Heaven, Hell, or even Purgatory. Reapers are required to wait for death to occur to a human before they are able to escort their souls to either Heaven or Hell. However, souls cannot be forced to go with them...There is the occasional servant that breaks the trend and becomes a rogue, purposefully misleading souls to a different afterlife for the purpose of profit... **

Bobby jerked away from the book, hands shaking. The words stared at him, dauntingly, daring him to continue if he had the guts. But after what he had just read, it had confirmed his worst fears. Why else would Dean's amulet be in a page about reapers if this wasn't the thing that took him out?

"Wait a minute," Bobby whispered, leaning back over the book in the dim light, fingers following sentences as he reread. "Reapers can't kill anyone that isn't already dying."

This book had practically confirmed it, Dean was dead, or at least on the brink of death when this reaper escorted his soul somewhere. But that didn't make any sense! Why would Dean point him to a book on reapers if the reaper isn't what killed him? What could be so special about...

There is the occasional servant that breaks the trend...purposefully misleading souls to a different afterlife for the purpose of profit...

"No," Bobby breathed. "No."

He wanted to deny it, to shove the book away and find another lead, but everything he'd been searching for over the past six years was right in front of him. This passage of text was the biggest lead that he'd ever gotten since the Impala, and just because he didn't like what the lead was telling him didn't mean that he could ignore it. But, God, how he wanted to. If Dean was trying to say what Bobby thought he was trying to say, then Dean had been dying, and instead of being escorted to the proper afterlife, he'd been dragged somewhere else, his soul mislead. And since Bobby ain't ever heard of a person coming back from Heaven, he could only conclude that Dean had been dragged to Hell.

It made his stomach lurch, and Bobby was on his feet, running to the bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet to throw up the burger and fries he'd had for dinner.

He was angry, so angry with himself for not pushing John harder, for not demanding that the boys get a normal life. He had loved those boys, had thought of Dean and Sam as his own, and yet he had let them continue to grow up in this shit life, and now look where they were! Sam looked like a damn hobo, running off nothing but rage and energy drinks, having lose both his wife and kid just days prior. Dean was dead, had been dead for years, and if this book and amulet was any indication, he was a demon, no longer the caring boy he had known.

Jesus Christ, where had it all gone wrong? When had the universe decided to royally fuck the Winchesters over?

That there lied the root of the problem. Whatever was going on in the Winchester family sure as hell wasn't random. Even ignoring the shit with Dean and Sam, questions had to be asked on why the YED was in the Winchester home that night in Lawerence, Kansas. Demons weren't typically random, they had a reason, even if a very small, stupid reason, for picking their victims. So why Mary Winchester? Where did she come in? There had to be a connection, because why would a demon only kill Mary, but leave the rest of the family unharmed, especially when John, and maybe even Dean, had caught a glimpse of the evil bastard?

Bobby stood on shaky knees and rinsed his mouth out with water.

He knew now that no matter how much he wanted to shoot John Winchester in the face, their lives were intertwined. Bobby was looking for Dean, and whatever Dean had gotten entangled up with involved the Hell and demons, and demons, a specific YED, was what had ruined the lives of Sam and John, and Sam and John were probably looking for Dean not he side, and fuck, it was all such a complicated mess. Bobby would have to put aside his scorn and call John, because no matter how much the man frustrated him, he couldn't deny that Dean's disappearance and the death of Sam's family was most definitely not a coincidence.

Trudging back to the table, he knocked back the rest of the beer and dug his cell phone out of his bag. He scrolled to John's contact information and pressed the green call button. He answered on the second ring.

"Bobby?" John asked. "Did you find something on the demon?"

Bobby scrubbed a hand over his tired face and moved to sit on the bed, hunching over to lean on his knees.

"John," he said quietly. "I think I found a bit more than that."

After the encounter with Bobby at the rest stop, John had gripped the steering wheel tightly, driving in what Sam thought to be nowhere. They could no longer go to Bobby's, since Bobby made it absolutely clear that he wasn't going back to his house and wasn't going to let them crash there, tragedy be damned. Sam didn't know what other leads his father could have had, not while sitting in Palo Alto, and Sam knew from a lot of eavesdropping as a kid that John had burned a lot of bridges in the hunting world being his natural asshole self, so it's not like he had any hunting buddies he could have called up for help.

John was going through an internal battle. He didn't have a lead on the YED, and he'd have to stop driving eventually to continue to map out a pattern, find a trail, discover a new lead. Sam would be useful with research, and it was probably good that Sam wouldn't be going out in the field so soon; he'd probably end up getting himself killed. However, it wasn't the YED he was thinking about for once, which was rather surprising. He kept glancing in the mirror in the car to look at his bag thrown in the back seat along with the plastic bags from the rest stop, eyes burning holes in the bag as if he were trying to stare at the camera through the material.

Watching that video had been...there just weren't the words to describe how he felt, how the blood in his veins had stopped pumping for a minute as he tried to process what he had seen. He tried to ignore it for a little while longer and focus not the demon, but driving in the car, in the middle of nowhere, he could no longer deny that Dean's presence in Palo Alto was directly connected to the YED killing Jessica and Emily. And, God, he never thought that would be a sentence he would ever think. What made it worse was that he didn't even know how to explain it to Sam in a way that didn't make him go off the deep end. Whatever he was dreaming about was another thing entirely, yet another hunch he had after years of tracking that yellow eyed monster, and he didn't know how to approach Sam with that either without getting a fist to the face. Sam may have been grieving right now, but he was a big boy, strong, and was no longer at the age or size where John could push him around anymore.

He didn't even know how Sam would react to the new of Dean being spotted at his house the night of the fire, let alone having been the one to barge in. After Lacy had showed him the video, he'd been forced to accept the very real possibility that Sam really had seen the Impala before he was sedated. But even with the Impala and Dean both being spotted in Palo Alto in Sam's neighborhood, and having been the one to break in the side door of Sam's house that night, it didn't explain why Dean would be there in the first place. For six years his son went off the grid, and then suddenly he shows up at the exact same time as Sam's family is murdered? There wasn't any logical explanation that John could make up that would justify Dean at the scene, especially in a way that didn't imply that Dean was in cahoots with the YED.

The very thought of that made John's stomach turn.

His phone ringing brought him out of his thoughts and made Sam jump in surprise. Before John could grab the phone that was sitting in the cupholder, Sam flipped it open and showed his father the caller ID. Bobby? Had he come across something already?

"Bobby," John said. "Did you find something on the demon?"

"John," Bobby's voice was quiet and worn out, like he'd been dragged through every horror imaginable. "I think I found a bit more than that."

"What does that mean?" Sam asked. "You found what the demon is planning?"

"No, I," Bobby broke off for a bit, and the three men sat in silence until Bobby continued, "I don't think this is a conversation we should have over the phone, as much as I'd like to. Don't wanna risk you crashing the car, John."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" John demanded. "What did you find?"

"I'm at the hotel just two blocks away from the gas station, room 26."

The line went dead, and John growled, snatching the phone out of Sam's hand and snapping it closed, tossing it in the back seat with this rest of his stuff. Without stopping the truck or even slowing down, John whipped around on the highway, tires squealing as they slid across the asphalt. Straightening the truck, John stomped on the gas and headed back the way he'd came.

"What do you think this is about?" Sam asked his father as they climbed out of the truck, duffle bags in hand. They'd made it back to the hotel in what seemed like record time, although it was no surprise with the way John had been driving, foot pressing down on the gas pedal as if it was the last thing it would ever do. They'd managed to snag the last empty hotel room with two beds that was conveniently placed just a door down from Bobby's room, in room 27.

"No idea," John muttered. "He didn't say anything about the demon, but it could just be more bad news."

"Bad enough that he didn't want to tell us over the phone?" Sam pressed. "You and I both know that never seeing your face again was at the very top of Bobby's bucket list. What could possible be so bad that he was willing to call a meeting? You guys didn't exactly part on amicable terms."

John didn't bother to dignify that with a response, instead shouldering past Sam to get to their own motel room, tossing his bag on the nearest table, Sam doing the same, before they walked the few feet back to room 26 and knocked.

Bobby opened the door and ushered them inside, the two men carefully stepping over the salt line. Before closing the door, Bobby peered out at the motel parking lot, scanning the scene. Just a few cars, other than he and John's trucks. were scattered along the parking lot, the night silent except for the chatter of crickets and rustling leaves. It was late, so he didn't expect to see much of anything, but with the things he was planning on tampering with, one could never be too careful, especially where the supernatural was involved. He shut the door and locked it, turning to face the two Winchesters.

"Alright, Bobby," John sighed, moving to go sit. "What's-"

"Where did you get this?" Sam's voice was low, containing a spark of rage that was threatening to explode. "Where did you get this!?" He spun around, holding the book that was on the table in the air, Dean's amulet dangling from it and shining under the light from the lamp.

"What the hell?!" John jumped to attention.

"I won't ask you again," Sam hissed.

"If you two would shut up and let me explain!" Bobby yelled, yanking the book out of Sam's hands. Sam's hands fell at his sides, fingers balled into fists, nails digging into his palms. "Both of you sit down and shut up."

He waited for the two of them to get themselves together before he pulled up another chair and laid the book out on the table, taking a deep breath.

"I've been searching for Dean for almost six years," Bobby began quietly, looking each Winchester in the eye. "Rufus and I were working a case back then, took care of a werewolf. We were in Lawerence, Kansas." John tensed up at this. "When Rufus and I were cleaning up, we came across the Impala in the middle of the woods. It was torn apart; the windows shattered, the seats ripped apart, whole car covered with dents. The only thing that was virtually untouched with the trunk. It had all of Dean's weapons, his fake IDS, everything in there. But we didn't find Dean. Over the past six years, I exhausted every resource I had, contacted every hunter I knew, and the hunters they knew, and nothing. Dean was gone without a trace."

"And you didn't think to say something about this years ago?" John snarled, arm cocked as if he was going to take a swing at Bobby.

"Oh, sure," Bobby sneered. "I'm sure Dean's piece of shit father and college boy brother were really worried about it." The fight drained out of John, and Sam had to look away from Bobby's judgmental gaze. "The two of you fucked off to God knows where, and how long did it take you to realize that the boy was missing?" Silence. "Yeah, that's exactly what I thought." He shook his head at John. "Rufus told me to call you, but I wasn't going to waste my breath. You would never give up the hunt for the YED, even if your son was in danger. Don't even try to deny it, because all three of us know it's true.

"Rufus and I brought the Impala back to Sioux Falls, and I fixed it up as best as I could. I thought that maybe Dean had some information about old cases in the car that I could use to track him, but there was nothing. And then a few months ago, I look outside, and the Impala is gone."

"So he's alive," Sam said hopefully. "That means he's okay!"

"Anyone could have taken the Impala, Sam," John pointed out.

"But no one else but Dean had his amulet!" Sam argued.

"He isn't alive," Bobby snapped. "At least, not in the way we want him to be."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" John demanded.

Bobby gestured to the book in front of him. "Almost two days ago, after yet another night of dead ends on finding Dean, I drank until I passed out on the couch. I woke up the next morning in my bed, with this book and Dean's amulet on the nightstand." He fingered the cover, lifting his head to hold John's eye. "You ain't gonna like it."

"What does it say."

"John-"

"What does it say?!"

Unwilling to be the one to directly deliver the bad news, Bobby slowly opened the book to where he had left off and slid it across the table so that both John and Sam could read it under the lamp. John's eyes flicked back and forth across the page quickly before he simply said, "Dean is not dead."

"John," Bobby whispered.

"My son is not dead!" He snarled, snatching the book off the table and throwing it across the room. It collided with the wall, a heavy thud echoing. The amulet bounced off the wall and with a clank landed in the rusting trash can in the corner.

"For someone who didn't even notice his son was missing until very recently, I suggest you sit your ass down," Bobby barked. "You think I like this? You think I enjoy having to chase after these clues to figure out what the hell happened to Dean? And quite frankly, you and Rapunzel over here," Bobby tossed a dark glance in Sam's direction, "have no right to act as if you're most upset than I am!"

"Dean is my brother!" Sam snapped, finally joining the conversation.

"Interesting that you say that, Sam," Bobby said. "Would you like to tell me when you last spoke with Dean?" Sam's mouth shut with an audible click. "Have you ever called him on his birthday? Or, hell, you shouldn't have needed a special occasion. Did you ever call to see if he was still alive? Or did Dean's existence slip your mind until after the rest of your perfect normal life went up in flames?"

"How dare you," Sam hissed. "How dare -"

"No, how dare you?" Bobby roared. "That boy sacrifices everything for you, and not once did you say thank you, not once did you call him to just chat, because you went to Stanford, and how could such a sophisticated college student so much as say hello to a someone like Dean?"

"That's not true," Sam whispered defensively. "That isn't-"

"Let's face the facts, Sammy," Bobby cut him off. "Stanford wasn't just a ticket to a normal life, it was also the perfect way to leave your family behind. Sometimes I wondered if you were ever really John's son, but seeing how easily you cut people off when they're no longer useful for you, I can very clearly see the resemblance!"

"I did the best I could," John argued. "I did the best that I could raising those boys-"

"No, you were so angry about your own life being fucked up that you had to drag them down with you, because misery loves company. Let's not pretend that you actually care about Dean and Sam, okay, because I remember Dean having to starve so Sam could eat while you were off God knows where. I remember Dean not being allowed to play outside or learn how to play baseball, because a six year old learning how to shoot a gun is clearly appropriate. I remember Dean spoiling Sam rotten and indulging you and your shit, and both of you continuously stepped on him and shoved him to the side, always demanding that he pick a side in yet another pointless argument between you two. I remember Dean being excited to graduate high school, boy made me so proud with a 4.0 GPA that he earned all by himself, only to call me in tears, because you were making him drop out."

Sam stared at his father through his shaggy hair. Dean had wanted to graduate high school? All this time Sam had assumed that Dean, much like their father, didn't care much for academics and just decided to get out while he could. This new revelation didn't sit well with Sam, driving holes in all his past beliefs, and not he didn't know what to think. He didn't like Bobby practically putting all his thoughts out on the table, exposing him for not being concerned about Dean for all these years. Until that moment, Sam had forgotten that without him there to back Dean up, Dean was probably out on hunts alone, scouring the woods for wendigos and werewolves all by his lonesome. Sam's stomach twisted as his brain assaulted him with the graphic imagery of Dean's intestines draped across the forest floor, his heart ripped to shreds, eyes staring blankly into the dark.

"John," Bobby continued, voice slightly quieter and just a tad gentler. "Believe it or not, I didn't call you two here to scream at you. Look," he quickly sidestepped around Sam's frozen form to grab the amulet and the book again, plopping them both down on the rickety table once more, the old piece of furniture giving a groan at the impact, "It says here that reapers can't kill anyone that was already dying. So Dean was already on the brink before his soul was taken."

"Reapers?" John scoffed. "Angels? You expect me to believe-"

"At first you didn't believe that it was a demon that killed Mary, even with all the signs pointed at you. Do you really want to make the same mistake again?"

John and Bobby stared each other down for a brief moment before John clenched his jaw and eased himself into a chair, knuckles white as he tightly gripped the armrests. "Alright," he said quietly, "What have you got?" He gestured for Sam to come back over. Sam stared at his father, feeling as though he knew that man extensively but also not at all. What else had Dean given up because John ordered him to, because Dean wanted to protect Sam for just a little while longer? What else did John have stowed away?

Hauling over more bags of books, Bobby plucked a few out and stacked them on the table. "I've been reading up on reapers, finding everything that I can. All the books generally say the same, that they're angels that work for Death."

"It says here that some reapers can go rogue," Sam pointed to the passage. "I don't understand, if reapers have a job that is controlled by 'Death', then how can they disobey?"

John wanted to mutter something along the lines of, "You seemed to have no problem doing so," but quickly decided against it. He and Sam could not afford to fight, not right now. When this was over, then they could scream at each other to their hearts' content. "If someone, or something, offered a reaper something valuable, then they could do something off the record."

"Exactly," Bobby said. "I've been thinking, since reapers escort souls to where they are destined to be in the afterlife, then the only reason a reaper would have gone rogue for a profit is if they were taking Dean somewhere else. And something tells me that Reapers aren't likely to smuggle a soul into Heaven."

"You think the reaper dragged Dean down to hell," John breathed.

"Think about it," Bobby exclaimed. "Dean's soul was supposed to go to Heaven, and from the books that I've read, it's damn near impossible to buy your way into their. So where else would a reaper take Dean's soul?"

"Why would someone want Dean in hell?" Sam questioned. "And anyways, that means that the reaper was working with another creature, certainly not a human."

"We shouldn't rule out another hunter," John pointed out. "I ain't exactly make a lot of friends over the years."

"Yeah," Sam scoffed. "But," he pressed his finger against the page of the book he had been scouring, Occupata iurisdictionem Sancti*, "the only way another hunter would be able to use a reaper would be to bind it, and seeing as how hunters have a strict, 'If it ain't human, it dies' policy, I highly doubt they have a Reaper in their pocket. It has to be another supernatural creature. After all, we killed a lot of those, word got out that Dean was alone, so they decided to strike."

"It seems like an awful lot of trouble," Bobby sighed, leaning back in his chair, holding the amulet's strings between his fingers. "I mean, a vampire or ghoul asking a reaper to drag Dean's soul to hell? What would they gain from that? The only ones who would truly benefit from having Dean down under would be-" Bobby stopped. Of course, the idea that Dean was alive but not in the way he should be had crossed his mind, and he had even mentioned it earlier, but for it to be a possible reality? But it was the only theory that made sense. No other supernatural creature would benefit from Dean being in hell except for the demons. And as far as he knew, there was only one specific demon with a very personal vendetta against the Winchesters, so much so that it had claimed not one, but two wives.

"Bobby?" John asked. "What is it?"

"Demons," he breathed. "Or, just one in particular."

Without a word, Sam pushed away from the table and squeezed around Bobby and his father, hand on the doorknob. John demanded to know where he was going, and Sam quietly responded, "I need to lay down for a little while, okay?"

John got up too, telling Bobby, "I'll be back, I need to make sure he gets in safely. At his house he didn't even have salt lines down, Jesus Christ."

Bobby shut the door behind them, and John started to set up the room, pouring a line of salt around the windows and doors, making sure to make the one by the door wide enough so that opening and closing the door wouldn't disturb it. Sam moved his duffle bag to the chair and flopped on the bed, not even bothering to remove the covers. He knew he should be in there with Bobby, trying to connect the dots, but his head began to hurt like a bitch, and he just couldn't take it anymore. God, it was like every time he thought his life was okay, the universe came out from around the corner to remind him that he was on her shit list. Bobby's theory that it was the yellow eyed demon that had taken his brother had only made his headache spike.

For fuck's sake, what did that bastard even want? There didn't even seem to be a pattern to his killings, at least not that Sam could see. It had killed his mother, had killed Jess and Emily, and apparently, it's possible that it had killed Dean years ago. So what was the game plan? The next move? He desperately wanted to believe that the demon was just killing for fun, but the people had had killed didn't allow that theory to take hold; after all, if it was just pure fun, why did he seem to have a vendetta against the Winchesters?

Watching his father put down the salt lines and put a shotgun next to his bed, Sam wondered if his father knew what the deal was. He probably did, and of course, in typical John Winchester style, he had chosen not to tell Sam a thing. Too tired to deal with that right now, Sam allowed himself to sink into a deep sleep, with the intention of getting to the bottom of things when he woke up.

After making sure to lock the door behind him, John stood on the sidewalk outside the motel room, duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He inhaled deeply, the cool, fresh air forcing some of the exhaustion out of his bones. Standing there, looking at the empty parking lot, and the distant sight of the highway behind the trees, he was tempted to make a run for it.

Working in a team wasn't something he excelled in, he could admit that, and he hated not being the one in charge 24/7, but in this situation, he didn't have much of a choice. He hadn't even originally planned on dragging Sam into it, but the stuff he had found had given him no choice but to go find his wayward son. The patterns he had drawn up over the years about the YED and his victims hadn't made sense when it came to Sam. The target seemed to be the children, he had done something to them, and as the kids reached their six month mark, he'd kill the mothers and sometimes even the entire family. But...that didn't happen for them. Yes, Mary had been killed, but Sam had gone to college, had a child and another one on the way. So why kill them?

Shaking his head, John knocked on Bobby's door. The older man let him in, locking the door behind him.

"How's Sam?" he asked.

"Out cold," John sighed, placing his bag on the seat that Sam had previously occupied and bringing out Lacy's camera, a cord, and a laptop. Bobby began to move the books out of the way, moving some to the floor and returning others to his bags, clouds of dust puffing up as the old things were heaved about. John tapped his fingers impatiently against the keyboard as the laptop booted up, slowly coming to life. He waited for Bobby to finish up before lowering his voice, aware of how thin the walls of motels could be. "I didn't want to do this in front of Sam, not yet. I don't think he's ready. He gives off this front that he's fine but really he's ten seconds from a meltdown."

"Remind you of anyone?" Bobby mumbled under his breath, settling in the chair and staring expectantly at the computer screen, which had finally came up. John opened the video file like he'd seen Lacy do and turned the laptop to face Bobby, not yet pushing play. "Where did you get this camera?"

"I didn't steal it, if that's what you're asking," John grumbled. "Lacy, the girl who lives across the street from Sam, gave it to me."

"And why would she do that? You probably scared the poor girl half to death."

"When Sam was in the hospital, I went back to his neighborhood with the intention of asking some questions, to find out if anyone had seen or heard anything weird, something they thought would be too weird to tell the police. Anything that resembled the supernatural. Of course, I had already drawn the conclusion that it was the YED, but I figured my life would get a lot easier if I knew what his meat suit looked like." Lacy's cheerful face filled the frame, pompoms in hand, Sam's house standing behind her, a picture of perfection, the calm before the storm. "When I got there, Lacy pulled me aside. She said she saw something, that when she was outside, her camera had recorded the entire thing. I," he took a deep breath. "I hadn't wanted to believe it at first. I tried to believe that the universe would not fuck over this family this badly, but after this video, after Dean's amulet showing up in your house in that book..."

John stopped talking, instead turning the volume up and pressing play.

Occupata iurisdictionem Sancti: Gaining Jurisdiction Over the Holy

** : Means that a certain paragraph was taken from the Supernatural wikia website.