The Trickster left to let them muse over his unusual offer.
"We're going to do this?" Jo asked.
"You don't have to. I have to see this through."
"Sam-"
"She's been getting into my dreams. Getting into my visions. I've got to get her out of my head."
Jo nodded. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
"Your mother would call you crazy."
"My mother runs an intelligence agency out of a pub in Los Angeles. Crazy is as crazy does." She flopped back onto the mattress. "Crazy runs in packs."
Sam smiled humourlessly.
He lay awake, his mind whirring, as Jo finally went back to sleep.
Lilith. Lilith. Lilith.
Making up his mind, he gathered his clothes and his satchel. Dressing quickly he cast one guilty look to Jo before slipping out the door quietly, careful not to disturb the circle of salt. This was something he had to do alone.
He stepped out of the dingy motel, shoulders hunched against the cold.
"Hey, kid. Was wonderin' if you were going to stand me up. Couldn't resist an offer like that, huh?"
Sam eyed the creature curiously. "You better remember that I'm not doing this for you." He said. "And I'm sure as heck not going to get involved in some demonic war. I'm only going to get my brother back."
"Loyal to the end." The Trickster grinned. "And so endearingly naïve. You've had a part in this demonic war since you were six months old." He sighed dramatically. "But I accept your terms. I'll take you to scope out the situation and lead you back safely if we don't see Dean. But a question. Why aren't you going to take blondie with you after that 'teamwork' declaration?"
"I can't. I can't ask her to die for me. She's like my sister and I can't expect that of her."
"Dean was your brother and you expected that of him." The Trickster said slyly. "Subconsciously if not intentionally."
Sam's eyes seemed to sparkle in the darkness before the Trickster found that something large and invisible had wrapped itself around his throat. He glared at the human angrily.
"I could break you with a snap of my fingers." He growled. "Put me down."
"Probably. But you won't." The force that had been pressing down on his neck vanished.
"Nice trick." The Trickster remarked. "But you're still a little erratic with the casting. You've got to really mean it."
Sam said nothing.
"So tell me, Sammy boy. And what are you planning to do once you have big brother in your sights?" The Trickster asked casually. "He's been infused with the power of the Mother. Unless you have a reinforced cellar somewhere or a small army packed away in the boot, you got a snowball's chance in hell of holding him."
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."
"You're reckless, boy."
"Yes."
The pair of them walked to the Impala. Sam kept repeating to himself something his father had told him after he had salted and burned his first ghost.
'The ends justify the means. If you spend all your time dwelling on the means, you're gonna get yourself killed.'
Dad.
I hope I'm doing the right thing.
When Jo woke up, Sam was gone.
In hindsight she should have expected it. Sam, you bloody moron. Of course the Impala was gone, his bed was stone cold and all his things were missing. You idiot. Though Jo didn't really know whether she was referring to Sam or herself. Winchesters were always very adept at lying.
Then she noticed the piece of notepaper propped up on the counter. It had obviously been torn from a journal of some sort. Running her fingers through her hair, she picked it up and peered at it.
It was covered in Sam's neat hand.
'Malevolent ghost – From blood of a murder victimLike 'typical' ghosts. Power of suggestion,
Watch out.
Salt, iron, silver
Bag by door.
Sorry. Sam'
"Great. I am so not the research girl." She muttered.
Sam had left his satchel by the door. Jo pawed through the bag. There was his computer, a silver knife, a shotgun loaded with salt, several iron pegs and a stack of newspapers. He'd set her up to kill these things if the Trickster didn't come through.
At least I'm not sitting on my ass doing nothing.
She turned on the computer, trying not to grimace.
"Okay. Let's do this thing."
Over the next hour she flicked through several dozen pages. It was shocking how many people posted information on the internet without doing a little fact-checking first.
Then she hit something that looked promising.
"- a tradition of the early people of the eastern countries was to nail an iron spike or tack into the place a murdered person had fallen to prevent the angry spirit from being woken and wreaking havoc on the village." She smiled. "Gotcha."
She opened the first newspaper. Sam had circled and questioned many of the people in the obituaries, and his little notes were scrawled in the margin.
"Sam, I don't give you enough credit."
She scoured the name of the first conclusive victim.
"'Roy Appleby'." Place of death – outside Hilton. LV. 'John Doe'.
"Our John Doe. At least it's here."
Later that night she was out the door and heading to the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. Thankfully it was only two blocks or so from where they were staying.
Being a country kid brought up in the middle of nowhere, Jo had become accustomed to seeing ramshackle old shacks and haunted mansions, neither of them worthy of human habitation. There was nothing nearly as humble here, in the swanky part of town.
During the day everything looked dead, but as soon as the sun went down, the nutters came out to party.
Bright lights. Laughter. Showgirls. The spinning of the slot machines and the sound of money trickling out of punters' pockets and into the wallets of the casino owners. It was the wildest dream of many of the men she had ever known.
The Hilton was huge and imposing. Jo stared up at the many security cameras and wondered how the hell she could manage to drive an iron stake into the ground without being seen. But first thing's first.
She had to find exactly where Roy Appleby fell and ultimately died.
Shining her torch on the ground, she began a circuit of the hotel's perimeter. One guy did holler out something obscene at her from a blue Cadillac but hardly anyone else noticed her erratic behaviour when half of the people still marauding the streets were as high as kites.
Then she noticed something. A patch of cement was darker than the rest. Jo crouched down to inspect the stain to ascertain that it was definitely dried blood and not, say, ketchup. All the surrounds were very clean, so there couldn't have been many things it could have been.
"Hello, Roy."
Next step. Driving a nail through cement without being caught.
"Aren't we having fun tonight?" Plus there was the small fact that she didn't have a mallet. Or a jackhammer.
Sam followed the Trickster's directions out of town.
"Pity." The Trickster said morosely. "I was really looking forward to hitting the casinos before heading back."
"Heading back to what?"
"A life of servitude."
"Who are you trying to fool?"
The Trickster gave him a dirty look. "Stop here."
"Here? There's nothing here."
"Well, you're not going to put your secret hideout in a place where anyone can find it, are you?" He tapped the dash. "Come on then, kid. Let's go meet the neighbours."
Sam got out of the Impala apprehensively and gave the vehicle one last parting pat. He didn't resist as the Trickster took hold of his elbow and steered him further into nowhere.
"I still don't see anything."
"Are you sure you're looking hard enough? Some people have a hard time getting over the difference between what they really see and what they expect to see."
"You have some perverse need to code everything in a riddle, don't you?"
The Trickster's smile sent chills down his spine. Without warning and with more force than Sam would have expected, he was flung forward into a tree. His nose made a sickening crunching sound as it collided with the trunk.
"Hold him." The Trickster said sharply. Sam barely had time to move as the weeds and the vines and the trees tried to capture him in their limbs. A thorny bush curled itself around his wrist and he gave an angry shout and ripped the plant from the ground.
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. So endearingly naïve. You should have listened to the blonde."
"What you told Jo. That was your plan!" How could he have been so stupid?
"Flaunted so openly that no one would have expected a thing." He gave a hard grin. "Get him."
There was a growl behind him. Out of the smoke stepped a huge black thing with viscous curved claws and massive jaws dripping saliva. Sam jumped back as another followed the first.
Hellhounds. Or pretty near perfect copies.
The Trickster laughed as the hunter turned tail and fled the only way that was clear. Further into the trees. "Run, my pretty." He cackled. "My little doggies here need a good exercise."
Stand and fight, you coward. Stand and fight! Why didn't you wake her, you stupid freak? You're going to die. Here. Now. No way out.
"Tell you what, if you survive, I'll take you to see big brother!"
Jo was sitting on a bench under a camera when she had a sudden brainwave. None of the folklore mentioned how big the nail was or wasn't, as long as it was driven into the ground and didn't break before it was fully immersed.
So she dug into the satchel once more. She knew that clinking around there somewhere were several iron rounds. Withdrawing one, she sank to the pavement, with her messy hair and outsized clothes she looked all the world like another hobo.
Ray Appleby's stain was on cracked pavement. Something large had shattered the cement, exposing the dark earth. Resting on her haunches, she estimated the centre, dug a small hole with her little finger and pushed in the round until she could hardly see it.
Staring at it, she waited for something to happen. Nothing did.
"Well. That was anticlimactic." She got to her feet, checking to make sure the bag was securely on her shoulder.
As she was about to leave, something screamed from further downtown.
It was loud and hoarse and animalistic and Jo stopped to listen. She knew for a fact that no human was capable of creating that sort of noise. Thrusting her hand into the air, she felt a small thrill of triumph.
Now Jo was a girl on a mission. "One down." Withdrawing a pen and notepad from her bag, she ticked off a name. "Only thirteen more to go. It's going to be one hell of a night."
The scream abruptly ended as if the creature's lungs had vanished. And perhaps they had.