One turn on the trail was all it took.
It came when they were hunting the ghost of an angry widow. Her strength was enough to shake loose the stones of the graveyard. She tore an apple tree from the mansion's backyard, twisting it like a tooth, breaking its roots.
At one point, Dean shot rock salt in her but she turned and shoved down a shallow garden wall upon his head. That's when Sam came up behind, aimed his rifle, and felt her hurl him straight for the old carriage house. He hit his head so hard he thought his head had cracked in two.
When his eyes opened, he was aiming for the ghost, but someone else was standing there. He blinked, trying to make sense of it. Because the person Sam saw was Sam.
Granted, he was a few years older than Sam was now. He also had, over his clothes, a long white choir robe. A few seconds seemed to transpire, and suddenly his eyes set to blazes in his face, hollowing out his skull. He lifted his hand and Sam felt some dark energy pass through the fingers of the strange Ghost Sam, as he pulled him with this power out of his body.
Sam glided like a letter-opener through paper through the air and the immaterial. He hovered around the courtyard of the old mansion seeing as Dean stood up from the rubble, and finally made his way to the old biddy's crypt, where he lit her remains on fire.
"You're not dead if that's what you're wondering."
His voice spoke to him. Sam turned to see older Sam, about 26, standing in the path. Ashes gathered at his feet. The white choir robe flittered in the wind. Beneath it, his clothes looked like a karate uniform, white shirt and white pants, no shoes. Sam blinked, confused beyond belief.
"Who...are you?" Sam tilted his head.
The older manifestation of himself chuckled.
"Don't you know?"
"That can't be..." Sam shook his head, fighting this tooth and nail. It was beyond crazy.
Spirit Sam nodded.
"By rights, it shouldn't be. But it is..."
"So, if I'm not dead, what is this?" Sam looked over his shoulder as Dean emerged from the crypt and ran to where his 2004 self's body lay against the old carriage house's wall, unconscious.
"You don't remember the Blood Baptism at all, do you?" The Spirit sighed.
"If I did, I wouldn't be here talking to you. I'd be fixing what I've got to fix." Sam frowned.
The Spirit nodded.
"I'm here to give you that fix." He stepped a little closer.
"Wait...Are you really me, or...or a demon, or...something?" Sam reached in his pockets to find some tools of the trade to test the spirit with, but then he remembered that his body was several hundred yards away, Dean currently slapping his cheeks in an attempt to make him come to.
"I'm not a demon, or anything else. I'm not because you're not. We are human, Sam." The Spirit drew a deep breath. His eyes had reappeared in his face, shiny and blue as the purest heaven. Sam studied the jewel blue eyes, in wonder.
"What did he do to me? When he baptized me?" Sam bit his lip.
"He was trying to fill you with all the essence of all demons ever made so you would become stronger than Lilith, Lucifer's first demon. Her life force is the lock and key that keeps him bound in Hell. Yellow Eyes wants you to kill her to free Lucifer." The Spirit nodded.
Sam's jaw dropped.
"Who knew killing a demon could be a bad thing?!"
"Yeah, that's what your future self thought too, in the version of the future that you start the Apocalypse by accident by killing Lilith." The Spirit smiled.
Sam was shaking now.
He rubbed his face.
"Tell me what I have to do...How do I keep Dean safe, not start the Apocalypse...This essence- can I control it?" Sam shook his head.
The Spirit smiled.
"No, you can't. But there is something you can do with it..."
"Okay?!" Sam bit his lip.
The Spirit sighed.
"Sam...you can destroy it. You can do the Blood Baptism in reverse."
"What the hell does that mean?" Sam shook his head.
"SAM!" Dean's voice cut through the shaky, soupy world Sam was in now. The Spirit looked back at Dean as he got frantic now.
"When the time is right, you'll know." The Spirit smiled, a tender look on his face. Sam felt disarmed by it completely.
"How?!"
"You'll do it to save him...Save him, Sam. Do it and you'll save yourself."
Sam woke up.
"God, you scared me! How you feelin'-is it really bad? How many fingers am I holding up? FYI, it's not 37-I don't have that many." Dean laughed.
Sam looked up into his eyes and saw all the strength he needed to beat the Devil when the time came.