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Chapter Nine: Exorcism 101

The search for Bobby was not going well, to say the least. They asked around some more, but no one they talked to had seen a man matching Bobby's description, or if they had they had no idea where he had gone. The one relief was that Bobby didn't seem to have hurt anyone.

"Maybe he won't," Sam said uncertainly, "I mean, maybe he's not such a bad guy. He's just a little unhinged."

Dean wasn't so optimistic, but he didn't share that thought with Sam.

"I mean, when we first realized we didn't remember anything, I thought you were—" But whatever Sam was going to say about all the wonderful things he'd thought Dean was, he didn't finish. He practically flattened himself against the window as he caught sight of something and called out, "Stop the car."

"Why?" Dean asked, although he did so. He didn't have to wait for Sam to answer however, because just then he saw her, kneeling in the dirt just outside the local cemetery. It was the same blonde girl who had run away from them a couple days earlier.

Sam was out of the car before Dean could stop him, and Dean had no choice but to follow.

The girl didn't notice them approaching her this time. She was too busy digging in the dirt, tear tracks streaked down her face and soil rubbed up to her elbows. At one point she tried to wipe her eyes with the clean part of her arm, but misjudged and got dirt smeared across her forehead.

"Hey," Sam said softly as they neared her. The girl's head jerked up. There was no doubt that she recognized them. Dean tried not to notice that she looked absolutely terrified.

The girl scrambled backwards from Sam, her hands moving in a jerky, desperate sort of clawing motion, but she seemed to realize she wasn't going to get away this time.

"Please," she said, her voice breaking in sobs, "I'm so sorry. . . don't hurt me. . ."

Sam looked alarmed. He glanced quickly at Dean before turning back to the girl and trying to reassure her. Dean was finding it now impossible to shake off the nagging, guilty feeling he'd had all along that they had done something horrible.

"We're not going to hurt you," Sam promised the girl. He crouched down as if he hoped that making himself look smaller would make her feel better. "My. . . brother, and I, we don't remember much. Why don't you tell us what's going on?"

The girl sniffled and hiccuped. "I didn't mean to do any of it. . . I-it said that you two were going to kill me. It said that you were hunters and if you found out it was m-me you would kill me."

Oh God, Dean thought. They really were killers. Or at least, someone had told this girl that they were, and what reason would they have to do that if it wasn't true?

"No one's going to kill you," Sam said emphatically. "Who told you that?"

"It did," the girl sobbed, not seeming to realize that this wasn't really much of an explanation. "I d-didn't know what it was. I didn't know the spell would work. . ."

"Spell?" Sam said, sounding awfully confused. Dean was confused as well, but somewhere in the back of his mind, a cynical little voice told him that he shouldn't be surprised.

"I found an old b-book, and I read it, and there were spells in it, and I tried one and i-it came. I didn't know – it promised to do w-whatever I w-wanted – but I didn't want. . . it killed them – but I didn't want that!"

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked gently. But Dean could see that the kid wasn't as calm as he tried to sound.

"Hannah and Kate and Josh!" the girl cried, as if they should know. "They're dead, and it's my fault. It killed them for me. . ."

"Whoa, wait, the kids who died in the fires?" Sam said. Of course he knew – he was the geek who memorized newspaper articles. "That can't be your fault. Those were accidents."

Dean wondered if that same logic could be applied to the two of them.

"No!" the girl shouted, "It killed them! It told me it did! Just like it told me y-you were coming and you would want to kill me and I just wanted you to forget, so – so I cast a spell and I buried it, but it—"

"Wait up – forget? You made us forget?" Dean said. How the hell did she suppose she'd done that?

The girl nodded, still crying. "But it didn't work," she protested, "You guys saw me the other day and you headed straight for me, so I knew you knew that it was me. . ."

"Actually, we were heading straight to get some burgers." Dean told her earnestly.

This didn't comfort the girl at all, if she even heard him over her own sobbing.

"How did you make us forget?" Sam prompted.

"I c-cast another spell. It was in the b-book. I thought you would just forget and leave me alone, but then it didn't leave me alone."

"A spell," Sam repeated slowly. He looked at Dean. Dean looked back at him, and shrugged. He really did not have any answers to this one. This girl was nuttier than Bobby. Was everyone that knew them insane?

"It won't go away. I buried the a-altar and the book here, but it didn't stop. It killed Josh. And n-now I can't find the altar or the book anymore."

"Okay, um, what is 'it'?" Sam asked, clearly still trying to make sense of this whole thing. Dean had given up a little while ago. Maybe they were just doomed to keep running into completely batshit people. For all they knew, they were completely batshit themselves.

The girl looked up at them, eyes still watery although she'd stopped crying so much.

"The demon," she said.

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"This is insane."

"I know. You keep saying that."

"Well, it's really insane!"

"I know."

"I mean, really, freaking insane!"

"I know! I get it, okay?"

The brothers (and Dean was still having a hard time getting used to thinking of themselves that way), were standing in a back alley just behind crazy-blonde-witch girl's house. Her name was apparently Megan, but Dean was more concerned about this demon she kept babbling about and the fact that she thought it was real.

What were the chances of them running into two crazies in the span of two days, while possibly being crazies themselves? Damn, how many crazies did the world have in it?

"This is insane," Dean repeated, for the umpteenth billion time. Sam glared at him.

"Look, if we help her, maybe she'll help us. She seems to know something about how we lost our memories."

"Yeah," Dean said, "She thinks she cast some voodoo magic spell on us! This is nuts, Sam."

"And your idea is that we sit in that dump of a motel forever and what? Just hope our memories come back on their own?" Sam countered and Dean gave him a half shrug.

"Look, even if this doesn't get us back our memories, you heard Megan. She told the uh. . . demon, about the girls at school and Josh. But she also told it about her parents. If it did go after the kids, then her parents could be next. We've got to get them out of here."

Dean sighed and looked back to where Megan was sitting in the back seat of his car. She seemed pretty convinced that this demon was real and had really been killing the people she had been angry with. But what were they supposed to do? Hide her parents away from some fictitious creature?

"Fine," he murmured reluctantly. They would take Megan and her family back to the motel. Leave them there and go find Bobby. Maybe if he put them together they could have a talk – one crazy to another – and sort the whole ridiculous mess out.

And while he was off in wishful-thinking land, he may as well hope that all their memories would just return, and there would be some wonderfully logical, non serial-killing reason, for the arsenal that was his trunk.

Yeah right.

He motioned for Megan to join them, and explained their offer. Opening the back gate they cut through her back yard and into the kitchen of what seemed to be a rather normal and respectable house.

Too bad their daughter was insane.

Dean gestured for her to go ahead, and collect her parents. What exactly she planned to tell them, Dean did not particularly care. She took off, calling to them, while Sam and Dean stood by the back door, uncomfortably.

After a few moments Megan came back into the room, looking confused. "They're not home," she said worriedly.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. "Do you know where they might have gone?" Dean asked.

Megan shook her head, looking once again on the verge of tears. Damn he wished she would stop that.

"Should we wait?" Sam asked, once again looking to Dean for direction.

Dean shrugged, but any further answer was interrupted by a loud bang from the front of the house. Dean and Sam exchanged a look, and as one they cautiously moved into the living room. Megan followed behind them.

In the living room, they could see the front door. Or more accurately, what had been the front door lying in a pile of broken wood under the feet of a woman. She was in her late twenties and had long dark red hair.

She caught sight of them and grinned.

"Oh God," Megan gasped behind them. "It's her. The demon."

"What?" Dean asked, while at the same time the woman advanced on them, the feral grin still on her face.

"Well, well," she cooed, and Dean could have sworn her eyes suddenly turned solid black. "If it isn't the Winchester boys." With that she raised her hand and Sammy was suddenly air-born. He landed against the wall with a solid smack, sliding down to the ground.

Instinctively Dean grabbed Megan and pulled her down, back into the kitchen. The woman – demon – whatever advanced. Sam groaned and tried to roll away, but the demon-lady held out her hand again. With a gasp and a look of pain, Sam appeared to be pinned to the wall and struggling to breath.

Desperately Dean looked around for anything at all that he could use as a weapon. His gaze settled on a large kitchen knife. He grabbed it, and letting all logical thoughts slip from his mind he charged the demon-thing.

She seemed to have all her attention focused onto his brother, and Dean managed to stab at her with the knife. Blood oozed out, and Dean wondered if he should be concerned that the sight did not unsettle him much. She looked at him, and now Dean was certain that her eyes where truly solid blackness.

She flung him across the room as easily as if he had been a small toy. He collided solidly with a bookshelf which splintered and sent books flying down around him. Then she looked down at the blade protruding from her chest. She grabbed the hilt and withdrew the weapon and tossed it aside, without so much as a wince.

Across the room Sammy seemed to have been released from the invisible hold and he charged at her. Knocking her off balance she stumbled toward a stairwell that presumably lead down to the basement.

Ignoring the sharp pains from well. . . everywhere, Dean forced himself to his feet and dove at the unsteady woman. She tripped over the edge and went down the steep stairwell hard and fast, landing, unmoving, at the bottom.

Deciding not to wait around Dean scrambled back to his feet again. Normally, he would have said after a fall like that they would be safe, at least for quite some time. But this was about as far from normal as one could get, or so Dean figured.

He grabbed Sammy's arm and bolted for the door way. Sam stumbling along with him. "Let's go!" he yelled and was thankful to see Megan sprinting for the back door without hesitation.

Dean had the key in the ignition before Sam finished pulling his door shut. The engine roared and Dean floored it down the alley. He peeled around the corner and the house disappeared from view, but not before he caught sight of movement at the back door.