3 - Six of Swords

Sam vowed to one day just leave Dean high and dry while talking to people. Leave him to do things all by himself. He figured, if Dean was really lucky, it might not end in a shoot out. Or, knowing Dean, a date.

Although, in all honesty, he didn't blame him for ducking out. This was fucking heartbreaking, None of these people should have been out here. They should have been indoors, somewhere safe, not abandoned like garbage at the side of the road. Add to that general indignity that they were being killed off by witches with no one the wiser, and it was a hell of a lot. He had to pretend to be dispassionate, but in all honesty, Sam wanted to punch something. Many somethings. A whole coven's worth, in fact.

Sarge was easy to talk to, considering everyone else that followed. Okay, he accepted the monster hunter thing way too easily, but it was more than possible he'd actually run into a monster or two in his life. The same could have been true of the others, but for the most part he couldn't get them to engage. He was an interloper, far too new around here to trust.

The sun had broken through my butt layer, and it seemed humid and stuffy. He was contemplating getting rid of his coat for now when he felt ... something. It was eyes on him, someone staring. He looked around, as the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Someone was openly glaring at him, and yet, he couldn't see a single person doing that.

Sam had the weird, irrational idea that it was the witch. He tried to dismiss it, but couldn't. No one he could see was even looking in his direction.

And the feeling simply stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Despite the heat, he felt a chill of horror. That was a billion kinds of wrong. He was about to call Dean and warn him they might be in for something when Ramon returned. "You okay?" he asked.

Sam wondered how much of it showed on his face. "Yeah, fine. Did you get anyone to talk?"

"Actually yeah. Birdie talked to Mercer the day before he went missing, and he told her that a fancy blonde lady gave him a good luck charm."

That settled in his stomach like concrete. "The hex bag?"

Ramon nodded. "I think so. I wish I had more of a description of the woman, but according to her, that was all he said."

"It is pretty vague. But why fancy?"

Ramon shook his head and shrugged. "I dunno. I'm gonna guess she looked like she had money." Ramon glanced around nervously. "So what's our next move?"

"I think you'd better leave that part to Dean and me. You're too involved in this as it is."

Ramon frowned, and it made him look ridiculously young. He was eighteen, right? He wasn't a seventeen-year-old flirting with the notice of killer witches, was he? "Hell yeah I'm involved. I know you guys are the experts and all that, but I'm not leaving. I've been through some shit, okay? Don't worry about me. I'll duck behind you guys if things get weird."

"Impossible. Look, this might -"

Dean reappeared, a sweating, huffing mess that collapsed on the nearest bench. Sam and Ramon both stared at him, not sure what to make of this. "Does he have asthma?" Ramon asked.

"I forgot ... I was walking back .. uphill," Dean gasped, still trying to catch his breath. "Fuck me, these hills."

Sam had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "Maybe you need to work out some more ... "

"Shut up," Dean snapped. He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and seemed to get his breathing under control, although he was still flushed, and ridiculously sweaty. He brought out his flask, and looked to drink about half of it in one go. Not very hydrating, but he'd had this argument with Dean already, and once was more than enough.

After a moment, when Sam confirmed no one was close enough to hear them, both he and Dean said, "They know we're here." They then shared a puzzled stare, and Sam imagined they were thinking the same thing - how does he know?

Ramon looked between, eyes wide in confusion. "What just happened?"

"Shirani confirmed it," Dean said, deciding not to answer that question. "We're next for the chop."

"Yeah I got this feeling," Sam said. If forced to explain it later, he'd try, but not right now, and certainly not in front of the kid. "Which means we have to get Ramon home and figure out a place to fortify."

"What? No, I'm not going home. I told you, I've been through some shit. Hell, I've been bitten by a vampire, right?"

Dean was finally on his feet again. He'd stopped panting too, which was always a plus. "Okay, sure, that happened, and you shot a few akephaloi. But this is completely different. How good are you at fighting things you can't see?"

"What? Witches are invisible?"

"Witches don't need to be in the room to kill you," Dean said. "Hex bags, remember? Spells. We've lived long enough to have a few tricks, but witches are the fucking worst, and we're not having you killed as collateral damage. Besides, if the witch knows we're here, she might have seen you too. What if she attacks Tia's place?"

Horror bloomed across Ramon's face. "What? She wouldn't ... would she?"

"She clearly has no compunctions about killing anyone. It's hard to imagine a few kids would matter." Sam said. He hated scaring Ramon like this, but Dean was right - they had no reason to believe she'd give a shit about a group of kids. In fact, past experience would lead him to think she'd enjoy killing them.

"We can give you some things," Dean continued. "But you're gonna need to stay there and keep an eye out. If anything seems weird, call us ASAP."

"Do I need to put down salt or whatever?"

"Salt is for ghosts and demons, "Sam said. "It has no effect on witches."

Ramon clearly didn't like any of this. But who did? "How do you keep this stuff straight?"

Dean shrugged. "When your life depends on it, you learn pretty fast."

Truer words were never spoken.

Back at the car, Dean started putting together some protective hex bags, while Sam showed Ramon how to draw a witch trap. Its efficacy was a little limited here, but if they attempted to come into the house, they would be stuck. As it turned out, Ramon was a pretty good artist. Just for the hell of it, Sam also taught him the demon trap symbol, because that could come in handy someday. Sam actually hoped that Ramon would walk away from the weird stuff and try and have a normal life. Sam wasn't completely sure why, but it broke his heart to think Ramon would become another hunter. But he was halfway there, wasn't he? You couldn't make other people's life choices for them, no matter how much you wanted to.

They dropped Ramon off at the house, and just to make themselves feel better, did a search around the outside of the house. Breaching the place unnoticed would be difficult, especially with Tia around, so putting stuff on the outside would be easiest. They didn't find anything, but still didn't feel great about any of this.

In Tacoma, you pretty much had two choices for rooms: fancy hotel, or fleabag motel. They went for fleabag, because of course they would, but also, if there was going to be a witch fight, sleazier places were much slower to call the police in the event of violence.

They had hex bags and witch killing bullets, but if she attacked via spell alone, they could be well and truly fucked. So Sam did a deep dive into the men of letters database on his laptop, and found something he thought could help. "Why don't I try a spell?" Sam said.

Dean, drawing a witch trap on the floor in front of the door, didn't even look away from his work. "I know you can do a lot of things, Sam, but I don't think you can out magic a witch."

"I can't," he agreed. "But I'm not going to try. I'm going to do a spell called 'reveal the face of the enemy'."

Dean finally looked back at him, and Sam swiveled the laptop screen in his direction. "It's pretty simple, actually. Witchcraft 101. And I think we have all the ingredients we need for it in the trunk." Well, that and a blood sample, but the good spells always required blood.

Dean came over to have a closer look, as Sam explained, "It will give us the name and face of the witch intending to attack us, so we can attack her first."

Dean smiled. It was tried and true strategy - someone coming after you? Go after them first. Sometimes you got the element of surprise, sometimes not, but it was always an advantage to have the opponent on the back foot. Sam knew he would like it. "Let's do it."

They gathered the ingredients from the trunk, and because he needed a basin, Sam decided to simply use the bathroom sink. That way they could rinse away all elements of it afterward, a tiny kindness to the cleaning staff.

To say it smelled terrible before he cut his finger and added blood to the mixture was an understatement. Why didn't spells like this have good smelling herbs, like sage or lavender? Why was it always small animal bones, grave dirt, and hair? Yes, it was a minor quibble considering, but it still sucked.

For several moments after reciting the spell, it seemed like he did it wrong because nothing happened, and Sam began to wonder if he skipped something. Dean seemed to notice as well, because he asked, "Anyt -"

It slammed into Sam's brain like his visions used to - like someone wearing a metal glove decided to punch his skull as hard as they could. He swore he almost felt his brain slosh over towards his left ear, ready to leak out. But he saw her as clear as day - a pretty young blonde woman, sort of anonymous in her way, and a name branded itself across his cerebellum. "Katie McClane," Sam said, pressing a hand to his forehead, trying to keep his brain from exploding out like a chest-burster.

"Really?" Dean replied. "How white bread."

"If it's anything, I don't think it's her real name, just the one she's using." Witches could shed appearance, age, and identity at will. Which was why the good ones were often hard to find. Rowena was kind of an exception, holding her name and appearance, but she was so powerful, she could risk it. He also knew they were not on the best of terms, but he wondered if he could text Rowena Katie's name, see if she knew her. If they were really lucky, she could have been a witch Rowena hated, and would take her out before they could.

Sam opened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror, expecting to see his nose bleeding like it used to. But nope, not this time. It just felt like one of his old visions - it wasn't one. Simply a spell with a hell of a kick.

"You okay?" Dean asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"Yeah. Just fought me a bit."

Dean seemed dubious, but he let him have it. "Okay, let's lock and load. We have a witch to burn."

Sam winced at the turn of phrase. Dean knew as well as he did, no witch burners ever burned witches, but regular people, stigmatize or villainized for one reason or another. It was hard to imagine an even incompetent witch getting caught and trapped by random civilians.

Sam took a moment to lean against the sink and let his head stop ringing, and he only chanced walking when he was about fifty percent sure he wouldn't fall over. He managed to reach the doorway, and figured he could go the rest of the way on his own. Would have been nice if the spell included the addendum 'feels like getting roundhoused by Mike Tyson'. Maybe he'd add that.

Dean was probably taking way too many weapons, but that's what he did. Sam grabbed his laptop, and Googled Katie McClane in the Tacoma /Seattle area. There were quite a few, which he expected, but he narrowed it down by finding an otherwise private Facebook page with a photo of the woman he had seen in his brain. "She lives in Seattle," he reported. Sam's eyesight was still a little blurry, but it was clearing up.

"Of course she does," Dean said. "She just comes down to Tacoma to kill homeless people. Goddamn -" Whatever he intended to say was cut off with a cough.

Sam shut his laptop, and stood, not even wobbling this time. Only when he was holstering his gun did he realize Dean was still coughing. "Dude, you okay?"

Dean put a hand on the wall, holding himself up, as he leaned over and threw up. But it wasn't vomit that came out of him.

It was blood, a shocking bright crimson, with some metallic glints in it. A slightly closer look confirmed Sam's fear - it was needles. A dozen or so, shiny silver, good for delicate fabrics.

Dean looked at the small puddle wide-eyed, blood still dribbling down his chin.

They were too late. Katie had already found them.