Sam snapped the book closed. "Nothing."
"What?"
"I've researched every recorded Devlin I could find."
"And?"
"Well, there was a Devlin in the 1850's that was jailed for trafficking potatoes, a Devlin was one of the last witches to be burnt at the stake in France, and a Thomas Devlin was committed to an asylum in '73 for seeing ghosts."
"That's interesting." Jo replied. "Hey, did you know the name Devlin was first spelt DEVLYN when it came out of Ireland? And it originally meant 'of the Devil'?" Sam glanced up at her. Jo had moved to one of the computer terminals and was reading with her head propped up on her hand.
"Where are you?"
"Google." She replied, clicking open another page. "Your professor has quite the following overseas."
"Grace?"
"Yeah. She's come out all the way from Australia. Graduated with a master's degree and worked at some place called the CSIRO for two years before she was sacked for some undisclosed reason. She's the only one of her family left. Oh, and she left her last posting in Oxford, England, because of a stalker."
"A stalker?"
"Some kid she taught." Another page opened. "Very 'I know what you did last summer' stuff. Threatening letters, phone calls, and someone broke into her house, gutted her cat and wrote in blood all over the walls."
"What did it write?" Sam asked with a sinking feeling.
"'I have you'."
Sam shooed Jo away from the computer. After thinking a moment, he accessed the Australian Police Force homepage. He skipped Australia's most wanted and accessed the search engine. Typing in 'Grace Devlin', he hit the 'search archives' button.
One complete match. On the 'watch' list. He opened it.
'Suspect in the death of Miss Emma Tilley, Brisbane. Miss Tilley had an angry confrontation with the suspect an hour before death. Suspect has an alibi.'
That was in 1989, when she was fifteen. What followed was a list of unsolved cases directly or indirectly up until she left for England, ending with-
'Suspect in the murder of her brother Patrick Devlin. Suspect has an alibi.'
"Bad luck?" Jo offered, though neither of them really believed it.
"I don't think so." Sam said. He searched for Patrick Devlin. Once again a list of the dead with chance encounters with the suspect appeared. "No. Something else." He returned to Google.
"Devlin is Irish and means 'of the Devil'?"
"Yes."
And so after a moment's contemplation, Sam typed 'Irish family demons' into the search box.
"What-?"
"Something is happening to Grace. It happened to her brother before he died. There's too much coincidence." Both of them craned forward to see the first of the results.
"'- one of the only known family demons originates from Ireland. The banshee-' We're looking for a banshee? For real?"
"That or something that operates with the same MO. Haunt the one family until they die out."
"But it looks like our friendly little demon is tired of waiting and is speeding up the 'dying out' bit. A banshee?"
"Only Grace Devlin knows for sure, and after last night, she's not going to tell us anything."
"How do families get demons?"
Sam shrugged. "Bad luck? There is no lore on how it happens, it just happens. But I suppose if you had an ancestor powerful enough to bind a demon to do it's bidding…"
"If they didn't release the demon before they died, that branch of the family would be stuck with it until they all died." Jo finished.
"Wow. You handled that weird and awkward question reasonably well."
"You underestimate my familiarity with the world of weird and awkward. Remember when you-?" At Sam's expression, she stopped. "D'you think she's a hunter?"
Meaning Grace.
The pair of them were sitting on the lawn, watching the world of normal pass them by. A world they didn't belong to and probably never would again. "No." Jo answered herself. "Australia to Britain to America in three months? She's running. Out to protect her own skin." There was a bitter note of disapproval in her voice. Sam remembered that this was a girl who would never run from a fight. Perhaps to a fight…
"We don't know for sure." He said calmly. "All we know is that we've got to keep an eye on her."
"I thought she made it pretty obvious that she wants us to stay out of it."
"Since when did you ever do what you were told?"
Grace stared down at the papers on her desk, not really seeing them. She could feel it, lurking beneath the ground, near the shelves, behind the eyes of her students.
I have you.
"Professor Devlin?"
She glanced up and gave an exasperated sigh. It was those two wild kids from the other day. Neither of them looked like they'd slept.
"Miss Harvelle. Mr Winchester." She said pleasantly. "Would you like me to call the dean or shall I escort you out myself?"
"Hear us out." Sam said in his most reasonable tone, hands open and empty, showing that he wasn't a threat to her. But the glint in the professor's eyes said she knew otherwise. Jo was more direct. She stepped forward and dropped a sheaf of papers on Grace's desk.
Grace put her glasses on. "What's this supposed to be?"
"Your police records." Jo said. "And your three brothers."
Professor Devlin gave a small smile. "So. You've found me out. What are you then, police? Did the hospital send you?" She looked up over the rims of her glasses, daring them to contradict her.
"We know who you are." Sam said.
Grace's smile widened "You have no idea."
Jo glanced at Sam. She could see that this woman's refusal to cooperate was beginning to throw him. It was time for her to take over.
"We saw the demon, Professor Devlin."
"I'm afraid what we all saw was a refraction of the light. Rare, but it happens."
Jo's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "You see Professor, we researched you. Your family. We know about the near misses and the murders. We know about the stalker. We know about the demon."
"You don't know the first thing." Grace said softly. Her hand twitched involuntary on her desk and Jo knew she's struck a nerve.
"'I have you'." She whispered. "It has you right where it wants you, doesn't it? It knows you can't run again. Your brothers tried to run and it caught them too. It strung them up and watched the life drain out of them. You're the last one left. And as soon as you're dead, it'll be free, and it'll start killing and it won't stop. It won't ever stop."
"ENOUGH!" Grace snapped, rising angrily to her feet. "I tried. I tried to protect you from it, tried to mask your scent, but now you know about it, it's going to kill you too."
Sam and Jo stepped back. There was shock on Sam's face, though shock at Professor Devlin's reaction or shock at Jo's interrogation technique, she couldn't quite tell.
The professor came around the desk, anger in every line. "What gives you the right," she snarled. "To blunder into my life, MY JOB, and throw my family in my face?" Sam flinched. Jo didn't spare him a glance.
"Because a lot of innocent people will die if we don't destroy this thing." She spat back. "We're trying to help you!"
"And what do you think I've been doing?" The reply was soft and smooth. "What do you think we all had been doing? Why do you think," her voice broke. "Why do you think they died like that?"
Silence. Sam finally asked a question that had been bugging him for a while now. "Are you a hunter?"
"A what?" She gave a tired laugh. "Me, I'm just trying to stay alive. I've dodged it all my life, barely keeping it at bay with simple little charms and spells. Spells that you word yourself, that mean more to you than script out of a textbook. And now I'm not going to run anymore. I'm going to fight, like my brothers. If I'm going to Hell, I'm taking it back down with me."
She was scared. But was going to stand and fight anyway. She may not think of herself as a hunter, but she had the spirit of one. "Please. Let us help you." Sam was anxious and becoming frantic, like the other times he was faced with loosing control of a situation.
"I know what I'm doing." The professor was not going to back down. She had resigned herself to dying, and it was tearing him apart inside. "You kids have no idea what you're messing with. You're going to get hurt. Killed, maybe. And if you're dead you can't fight. This time leave it be. Walk away, hunters. Don't look back."
"But I can't-"
"You can. There's always one that got away, Sam. This one is the one that got away. Listen to me. No, listen. You have to live. No matter what, you have to live."
"How can you know for sure? How can you possibly know-?"
"You're a good boy, Sam. But you have to learn to trust again. Live again." The professor took off her glasses and polished them on the hem of her shirt. "I think you should leave now. It's a long way home."
Jo glanced at Sam for confirmation. He nodded his head slightly and she made her way to the door wordlessly. He looked back up at the professor. "You can't win."
"Never underestimate the opponent. The same works for both human and demon. You need to remember that. Listen to your instincts, and remember there is no such thing as a lost cause."
"It's a lost cause." He stared moodily down into his drink.
"No." His companion said, his breath coming out with a coating of alcohol. "You just went about it a bit wrong. A lot wrong. You're on the same bar, which is good, but my friend, you need to be one step ahead. Don't let 'em get the jump on you. If ya do, I ain't gonna be the one to tell Mother you screwed up."
"You're drunk."
"And you're stupid. But let's not quarrel over trivialities. So ya bombed first time 'round. That's cool. You been gone now for what, six years? You need time to get back into the game. Back into the swing of things. 'Sides, they can only kill you once."
The Trickster took a swig of his whisky and gazed thoughtfully at his young charge. "Least you smell better now. Trust me, that delightful demony whiff… knock the angels out of heaven."
Dean Winchester glared at him coldly. Once upon a time, the kid woulda staked him right there and then just on principle. Now he had no principles. No morality. No compassion. He was gone. Just a super-powered shadow.
No humour… the Trickster missed that bit. The old Dean woulda got some of his finer observations on the current state of affairs, and could appreciate the wit of the Trickster's better-crafted stunts. Now he was just cartin' a kid about who was no better than the thing that pulled him outta Hell. Empty.
It scared him a bit. Okay, it scared him a lot. She was desperate enough to make a deal with one of the Underdemons to get her hands on this soul, which meant she was pretty damned serious about whatever she was plannin'.
And whatever it was couldn't be good, neither for the human locusts that swarmed across the face of the planet in droves, or the leeches that manifested themselves underneath it.
However, the Trickster was wily enough not to bring any of this to Mother. She was prone to temper tantrums.
The Trickster went back to studying the profile of his cohort. Thinner, stronger. Six years in Hell, and each day showed in the lines of his face. The old Dean would not have surrendered to any demon no matter what was at stake. Which made the Trickster wonder-
What was he planning?