The neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip burned into my eyes as a sea of jolly people rushed around me, drunk on gambling-induced adrenaline and fruity cocktails served with tiny paper umbrellas. The night sky was dark — as dark as any city sky could really get — but the city was as bright at day. Music and laughter cascaded from casinos and hotels, and clashed against the vibration of traffic like a wave blasting against a break wall. A hot, arid breeze carried the scent of sweat and gasoline with hints of chlorine and greasy food that mingled into one nauseating but intoxicating smell.
The plan was to search for Desdemona without making it seem like I was doing so.
"Make it look like you're on the run or something," Dean had recommended before I left him and Sam in the designated alleyway with a bright orange demon trap, and Freya (an arrangement none of us were thrilled with, but taking a hellhound for a walk down the Las Vegas strip was out of the question). "Try to blend in, but not too much."
Which is, essentially, what I did. I played blackjack at Bally's under golden ceilings. I strolled the elegant red floors of the MGM Grand and fed slot machines coin after coin. I drank whisky by the luxurious pools at the Tropicana, and threw red dice across a green felt craps table in the pyramid shaped Luxor. I repeated everything at Excalibur, New York New York, and the Monte Carlo. I pretended like I was having fun, while making it seem like I was trying to blend in with the masses. But I wasn't really blending in, and I wasn't really having fun.
Big surprise, right?
Personality aside, it was difficult to find anything fun about the circumstances. I was parading myself around under hundreds of security cameras in a crossroads demon's territory while sulking over the raw hatred that was festering in my gut. I maintained enough awareness to scan the faces in the masses of people that milled around in Hawaiian shirts and tacky visors, but not enough to truly see everything. I could hear my drill sergeant's voice screaming in my ear "distracted men are dead men", but I was too consumed to do anything about it.
Sam hated me. Dean trusted me, which I found as equally relieving as I found it unsettling. I desperately wanted to take my revenge on those bastard angels for what they had done to me, and the fact I was helping them only fed the fire that blazed within me. I felt like I was going to erupt in a hot fury in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip.
And then I saw her.
She was standing beside the ornate fountains outside the Bellagio in a slender red dress and a black fur coat. Her vessel had long, straight black hair, dark, almond shaped eyes and a delicate, round face. The real Desdemona, the demon beneath the attractive mask, was a lipless red vapor with sunken eyes and gnarled, stringy hair. And she was staring right into me.
I stopped dead in my tracks and gave her what I hoped appeared like a shocked expression. My eyes widened in pretend horror and I put in the effort to slowly back away in fake fear. I crossed the street with an exaggerated skittishness, and wound my way into the horde of people that shuffled along the sidewalk. I walked with a hurried step, trying to make it look like I was trying to loose her, but I walked slow enough to make sure she was following me.
I took a sharp right and continued my overly-nervous charade, making tracks down the sidewalk towards the alley where my sons and my hound were waiting for me. But I didn't go that far. Instead, I made a sudden right into an alley three blocks from my boys and their demon trap, and I slipped into the shadows of the empty alleyway. I peered over my shoulder as I walked down the dark pathway, and, unsurprisingly, discovered I was not being followed. When I turned my gaze forward, I was forced to stop short; Desdemona was standing right in front of me.
My eyes grew wide with pretend shock as a small, sly smile spread across her red lips.
"Shit," I cursed under my breath as I cautiously sidestepped her and slowly edged my way around her petit frame.
"Shit is right," she spoke sharply. She glowered as I gradually began to back away from her. "Can you imagine what Crowley's going to do to you?" she sternly questioned, following me with a slow, menacing step. Her red eyes locked onto mine and a devious smile crossed her lips as she backed me into a brick wall. "He's never going to let you die."
"You know who I am?" I questioned with a fearful voice.
"Of course I know who you are," she replied with a confident grin. "John Winchester."
I gulped.
"I have to admit, I'm impressed," Desdemona began to banter. "No one has ever eluded the legions of Hell before, not for one second. Yet you've managed to escape it. Twice."
"I am John fucking Winchester," I replied coldly.
"Crowley is not going to take this lightly," she half warned, half bragged, practically giddy she had found me. "He's going to make an example of you."
Desdemona stared hatefully into my eyes and she flashed me a wicked grin as she clamped her right hand hard on my left shoulder. We stood like this for a good minute before she realized she couldn't transport me as she had intended. Her expression fell into a frustrated confusion, her brows creasing at me as a sly grin crept across my lips. Her gaze fell from me to the ground where she found the black demon trap I had painted hours before, the edge touching the wall I had been pressing myself against.
"Are you stupid?" she asked with a furious irritation and a violent fire behind her eyes. "You know you trapped yourself. With me."
"Oh no, sweetheart," I said. I leaned forward to whisper a snide, overly-confident comment into her ear; "I trapped you with me."
The fury I had kept pent up within me all day was unleashing itself. It guided my hand as I grabbed her by her shoulders and thrust her up against the brick wall I had been pressing myself against. Her body collided with the red brick wall that cracked upon impact. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as my fingers closed around her throat and I held my Kurdish knife to her belly.
"Now," I whispered, leaning into her as she gasped. "I have some questions, and it would be in your best interest to answer them honestly."
"Ask your questions," Desdemona spat without fear. "I won't tell you shit."
I gradually pushed my knife into her stomach at an upward angle, making sure she felt every inch of my weapon. I put a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as the skin around the blade sizzled and hot orange flickers of light webbed across her flesh.
"Where's Crowley?" I whispered into her ear. I carefully removed my hand from her lips to allow her to speak. She gasped in pain as she glared at me.
"Fuck you," she shakily spat.
I pushed the blade in a little further, and I tried like hell not to enjoy every bit of it.
"Where's Crowley?" I whispered again.
"How… stupid… do you think I… am?" she panted.
"Stupid enough to follow John Winchester into a dark alley," I whispered smugly. I drove the knife in a little deeper, carefully avoiding her vital organs. I wasn't trying to kill her. Not yet.
"Where. The fuck. Is Crowley. And his fucking grimoire?"
A slow, shaky smile crept across her lips.
"Look at what you've become," she said with a weak sneer. "You're a monster, John Winchester. And you're going to burn."
I pulled my blade from her stomach and swiftly pressed the bloodied tip of it against her throat. I punctured her flesh ever so slightly, releasing a thick bead of blood that trickled down her neck and ran down her chest. Desdemona let loose a fleeting glimpse of fear in the form of a sharp gasp.
"Last chance," I warned.
"I hope Crowley force-feeds you the slaughtered remains of your children," she spoke through gritted teeth as a bitter smile twitched across her lips. "Go to Hell."
I slowly pushed my blade into her neck, and I watched with satisfaction as the familiar orange flicker ignited within her. The hot light illuminated the skeleton beneath her body as she stared into me with her face twisted in excruciating pain. I locked my eyes on hers and waited for the light to fade away before I jerked my weapon free of her delicate neck and carelessly allowed her to collapse at my feet.
You just killed another person.
A frigid flood of numbness swelled inside me as I glanced down at the body lying at my feet. It wasn't really the fact that I had killed again that bothered me (which was also, in itself, worrisome). What unnerved me was how I, again, lacked hesitation. I didn't even think about it, not once.
Her body has probably been dead for years, I tried to convince myself as I pocketed the bloodied blade. I turned my back on the corpse and walked to the edge of the thinly painted trap where I stooped down and extracted a small bottle of water tucked safely in my jacket pocket. I poured it along the black paint, concentrating the spill to one half inch spot in an effort to break the circle just enough. The paint slowly began to chip and break away and, within a minute's time, I was walking free from the trap I had set.
It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to protect my identity, but I couldn't think of anything worse than Sam and Dean discovering exactly what had become of their father.
The realization of what I'd done and how I'd done it gradually began to sink in as I trudged away from the body Desdemona had been piloting and headed towards the street. A weighted guilt gnawed at my gut and trembled in my limbs. My chest tightened as I somberly limbered down the sidewalk.
This wasn't who I was.
It's not the person you were. It's the monster you are.
Fuck.
I had been a demon for well over five hundred years, in terms of Hell time. But I hadn't truly grasped what it was I had become, not until that moment. I had known it was bad, but I never dreamed I could ever be this… disgusting.
I tried to swallow my shame as I rounded a corner and sauntered down the alley where Sam and Dean were waiting in the shadows with their hands clutched tightly around their respective demon-killing instruments. They appeared tense, unhappy they had been left in Freya's company, despite the fact she was innocently laying in front of a blue dumpster several feet away from them. I arranged a casual expression on my face as I approached them, and loosened my posture. I tried to forget I was the thing I never wanted to become, the beast I hated more than anything in existence, and I lit myself a cigarette.
The rigid expression in Dean's face fell into a look of confusion as he watched a plume of white smoke escape my lips and trail behind me as I walked.
"Where's Desdemona?" Dean questioned, searching behind me for the demon who was supposed to be following me.
"Desdemona is dead," I replied with a smoky, nonchalant breath. "Three blocks that way." I lazily gestured to the right.
"Why is she 'three blocks that way'?" Sam shortly questioned.
"She recognized me," I supplied them with a vague truth, tiptoeing around the fact I had lured her there. "Threatened to take me to Crowley."
Sam exhaled a heavy, irritated sigh and rolled his eyes. He shook his head and bowed it in disappointment.
"Did she at least tell you where Crowley is?" Dean questioned, his tone slightly more forgiving than his brother's had been.
"I asked," I said. "But she seemed pretty adamant about not telling me."
"Great," Dean said, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Now we have to find another demon."
"I can arrange that."
The unexpected and uninvited voice came from just behind Sam and Dean. They whirled around to face a crossroads demon guised as a young, dark haired man in an expensive white suit. He flicked his wrists with minimal effort and sent Sam sailing to the left, and to Dean the right, pinning them each to a wall. A fierce rage blazed behind his eyes as he strode towards me, and I reached for my knife. I was quick, but he was faster; I barely had the Kurdish blade out of my pocket when he kicked it from my grasp with the sole of his patent leather shoe, and it clattered to the ground. My cigarette tumbled from between my lips as he clenched his fingers around my throat and pushed his face into mine.
"You killed Desdemona," he accurately accused. His jaw clenched as he stared me dead in the eyes. A look of enraged recognition crossed his face as he scowled at me through narrowed eyes. "I know who you are."
"So did… Desdemona," I gasped as I tried to pry his fingers from around my neck. "'S… what got… her killed."
I swung my left arm against his, trying to weaken his grasp, but his grip around my throat held fast. I swung my right fist into his face, but he didn't even flinch. I attempted to knee him in the gut, but he shook me like a rag doll and tightened his fingers, nearly crushing my esophagus.
That was when I noticed Freya slinking through the shadows behind him.
"You gonna try to take me to Crowley, too?" I tried to stall him to give Freya time to sneak up on him. I tauntingly flashed my black eyes at him, along with a prideful grin.
"Nope. I'm going to kill you," the demon growled threateningly.
"I'd like to see you try."
The demon — Desdemona's lover, judging by the fury he held — raised his left hand, readying it to strike me, when a savage growl rolled from Freya's throat. She pounced him before he had a chance to react, slamming into his body with such a force he lost his grip on me, as well as his hold on my boys, and tumbled pathetically to the hard ground below. A terrified yelp emitted from the his gaping mouth as Freya's lips curled to expose the sharp teeth that loomed over the demon's face. Freya snarled and snapped at him as she dug her claws into his chest and frantically began tearing him into bloody ribbons.
From the corner of my eye I caught Dean turning his head away in discomfort and disgust, the carnage reminding him of his own experience with hellhounds. Sam, on the other hand, watched what appeared to him like a body tearing itself apart as it squirmed and screamed in horror and pain. He watched not because he wanted to, but because he was looking for a way to jump in without receiving the sharp end of Freya's wrath in the process. That or, as it occurred to me later, he was trying to calculate exactly where Freya was so he could take her out along with the demon we were not expecting.
For a minute I just stood there, watching Freya as her jaws clamped around the demon's neck and she dragged him to the demon trap to keep him from smoking out. I cursed the red-haired demon we met in Baton Rouge, the one who told us about Desdemona. He had set us up, I was certain of it. He didn't mention this demon as a screw you to us for killing him. I tried not to consider the fact that this easily could have been avoided if I had bothered to set aside my burning rage for a few measly hours and actually focused on my surroundings. But it was easier and far less embarrassing to blame the bastard demon from Baton Rouge.
After I'd had my fill of cursing dead demons and watching the live demon writhing and gasping and bleeding, I stooped down and scooped up my blade. I ambled into the trap to where he was laying with his white suit drenched in red and torn to shreds. His chest had been ripped open to expose his ribcage, and his stomach was hemorrhaging dark blood. I withdrew a cigarette from my jacket pocket and casually lit it as the demon squirmed under Freya's teeth.
"Having fun?" I asked vaingloriously. I sucked in a deeply satisfying lungful of smoke and quickly exhaled it through the side of my mouth. "I'm going to cut you a deal," I said, speaking around the cigarette between my lips as I held up my blade for the demon to see. "You tell us what we need to know, and I will give you a quick death. Tell me to fuck myself, and I watch Freya tear you apart until I've smoked every last one of my cigarettes." I paused to flash him a wolfish grin. "And I just bought a new pack."
"D-damn you," the demon sputtered in a hoarse, muted voice. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and grimaced as Freya tightened her jaw around his neck. "Fucking… Winchesters."
I drew in another drag of smoke and nervously side-eyed my boys as they edged their way toward the trap. Their expressions were hardened and curious, but not suspicious. The comment had brushed by them without a second thought, and I exhaled a smoky breath of relief.
"Where's Crowley?" I asked, glancing back down to the demon. He glared up at me through narrowed eyes, and Freya clamped down even harder.
"M-Michigan," he stammered. "T-town called Traverse. Old asylum."
"Does he have the grimoire with him?" Dean gruffly questioned, and the demon vigorously nodded.
"Y-yes," he gasped.
"Thank you," I spoke down to the demon, who stared up at me with wet, pain filled eyes. "You've been very helpful."
"S-so glad I could help," the demon spat sarcastically through the blood that trickled from his lips at a steady rate. He watched me as I crouched down beside him, and positioned the tip of my blade against his chest. "C-Crowley's never going to l-let you d-die."
"Yeah," I casually said. "I heard that one."
I thrust my knife into his chest and, with a sick satisfaction, watched the light explode in his body. It crackled and sparked before it gradually dimmed and faded away, leaving a hollow corpse in its wake. I peered down at the mess of a body lying in a pool of its own blood, and I felt…
Nothing.
I didn't feel terrible, or guilty over the fact that I didn't feel guilty. I simply felt nothing.
What is happening to me?
I stood upright and calmly pocketed my knife as I turned to face Sam and Dean. They stared at me with hardened expressions, their hands still gripped around their blades.
"What?" I asked, puffing lazily on my cigarette. "You boys gonna let me out?"
"That was kind of brutal," Sam commented in a scolding tone.
"He was just a demon," I snidely shot, and he narrowed his eyes at me.
"I meant your hellhound," he said coldly, and I rolled my eyes.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I muttered, more to myself than to Sam and Dean.
"I don't want it in the car," Dean said firmly, his voice deeper than normal in an attempt to mask his fear of Freya.
"She just saved our asses," I heatedly pointed out. "She only does that when I am in trouble, and we are a package deal."
Sam and Dean exchanged a long, contemplative stare.
"We don't have time for this," I snapped as they wordlessly debated their options, and calculated my worth to their mission. "We need to disappear. If you need me to help you get that fucking book, then let us out, or get the hell out of here and I'll get out of here myself."
Somehow.
They turned their backs on me, much like they had in the motel in Florida, and leaned close to privatize their discussion.
"We don't need him," Sam insisted. "We've gone up against Crowley before. This isn't anything we can't handle ourselves."
"Of course we can handle it," Dean agreed. "But Crowley is expecting us. He's not expecting a fucking demon hunter. Hunter demon?"
"Guys," I called above their hushed but still quite audible voices. "Seriously. Tick-tock."
They turned to face me again. Sam's face was rigid, his fingers still tightened around the hilt of his Kurdish blade as Dean gradually crouched down and used his long, silver angel blade to scratch away enough of the trap to break the seal.
I stepped free and brushed past Sam, flicking the smoldering stub of my cigarette to the ground with a reserved motion. He scornfully watched as I lit myself another cigarette, still clutching his demon blade in a silent protest to Dean's decision to keep me around. I pitched him a cocky smirk and said;
"Shotgun."