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Chapter Ten: When All Else Fails. . . Salt n' Burn It!
They tried to leave the girl at the motel, but Megan insisted on coming with them. "I have to make sure my parents are all right,"she'd said, and since she'd looked about ready to burst into tears again Dean hadn't wanted to argue too much.
There was a van neither of them recognized parked outside the house when they got there. Dean was sort of hoping it belonged to Bobby, but seeing as it screamed 'soccer mom' he really doubted it. He didn't see any other vehicles, or Bobby, in sight.
"This is great," he muttered, turning to Sam, "What do we do now?" As he did so he caught Megan scrambling to get out the car from the corner of his eye. "Hey!" he shouted, "Don't go out there! Wait!"
Dammit. He knew they shouldn't have brought her along.
With a final glance at Sam, Dean got out the car to follow. He still had a shotgun, which apparently wouldn't do him any good, but he felt better carrying it anyway. Strange how he could go from barely being able to look at the weapons to suddenly using them as some twisted security blanket.
Sam followed him up to the obliterated front door where a middle-aged woman with flecked grey-blonde hair had appeared to lecture Megan. Something about the living room being destroyed and the front door being broken.
"But Mom!" Megan insisted, pleadingly, "You're in danger – I swear, it's real—"
Megan's mother glanced up at Dean and Sam as they approached. "Did you bring these two here to kill me?" she demanded sharply. "You are grounded forever, young lady."
Dean barely had time to see the woman's eyes turn completely black before she raised a hand and flung him and his brother across the yard. He crashed against the side of the impala, and amidst the ringing in his head he heard Megan scream. He looked up in time to see the demon drag the girl inside.
"How the hell is it her?" he railed, struggling to get up. Man, if he had thought he ached before. . . "I thought that was the girl's mother!"
Sam grunted, looking in about as much pain as Dean felt. "Bobby said something about the demon being able to switch bodies. . . possess someone else. . ."
"Great," Dean grumbled, "Where the hell is Bobby?" He glanced around and noticed there was a brand new dent in the side of his car. He suddenly really badly wanted to kill something. Preferably that demon bitch.
"You okay?" he asked Sam, watching as the kid winced and stood up.
"I think so," Sam muttered, leaning against the side of the car and looking anything but. Dean felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for the kid. And rage. He was going to rip that demon bitch's lungs out.
At that point another car pulled up along the side of the road, an old Chevelle. Bobby climbed out of it and hurried toward them. He looked like he was toting a few weapons of his own under his jacket.
"Dean? Sam?" he said anxiously, "What happened?"
"That demon kicked our asses is what happened," Dean grumbled.
"It's possessing Megan's mother," Sam explained, trying to stand without the aid of the car and wobbling unsteadily, "It's got her in the house now."
"I thought I told you to wait for me!" Bobby cried. He glanced at the two of them, and then at the house. "You two didn't go and try to and charge in through the front door, did you?"
"Uh. . ." Dean and Sam looked at each other and decided not to answer that.
That itself was probably enough of an answer for Bobby. He shook his head and led them around the side of the house, where they were able to see in the window through a crack in the blinds.
It was difficult to tell what was going on. There looked to be a man on the floor, probably the girl's dad, and he was out cold. Dean caught a glimpse of the demon, still possessing the Megan's mother, and Megan herself kneeling in the center of what looked like a living room. There was wooden block with all sorts of weird symbols carved into it sitting in front of her.
"The demon must still be bound to her somehow," Bobby commented, "Otherwise I don't see why it would keep her alive. By the looks of things, it's getting her to recite some spell that will break that connection, and as soon as that happens the girl's dead. We have to act fast."
Well, that was all fine and dandy. How were they going to get in, first?
Bobby was already making his way around to the back door. When they reached it he handed Dean a liquor flask.
"What the hell is this for?" Dean demanded. Not that he didn't feel like drinking. Hell, when this was over he could go ten rounds just to try and forget everything that had happened.
"Holy water," Bobby said by way of explanation.
"You keep your holy water in here?" Dean said, somewhat impressed.
Bobby had Sam pick the lock to the back door, which the kid was surprisingly good at. Dean had an inkling that they must do this kind of thing a lot.
They were definitely insane.
Once they got in the house they could hear chanting coming from down the hall. It didn't sound like any language that Dean had ever heard. Bobby explained the plan quickly. "We have to stop the girl from finishing the spell. As soon as it sees us the demon will attack – Dean, you have to help me hold it off while Sam reads the exorcism."
"Yeah, sure, no problem," Dean muttered sarcastically. He really hoped this holy water exorcism stuff worked the way Bobby said it would.
Slowly and cautiously, they made their way down the hall to the living room. The demon's back was to them when they reached it, but she but either she had expected them or they had made some sort of noise, because she whirled on them the moment they stepped into the living room.
In an automatic, knee-jerk reaction he didn't know he had, Dean tossed some of the holy water on her face. The demon shrieked, and stumbled backwards, clutching her face as it fizzled and smoked.
He had a nagging feeling it wasn't going to stop her for long.
"Megan, stop the spell!" Sam shouted. The girl cowered by her tiny altar.
"Stop the spell and your mother dies!" the demon spat. There was still some smoke rising from where Dean had splashed her, but she seemed to be recovering fast.
"Sam! The exorcism!" Bobby commanded. The demon looked at him and with a flick of her wrist sent an entire coffee table flying at his head. Bobby managed to dodge it. Without really knowing what he was doing, Dean tackled her to the floor and emptied the flask of holy water on her face.
The demon clawed at him as he struggled to hold her down. Far stronger than any normal woman, her dull fingernails drew long gashes down his arms, raked a bloody trail across his chest and nearly ripped out a chunk of his face. At some point Bobby reappeared and doused her in more holy water, but she continued struggling. Through it all he heard Sam's voice shouting Latin words from somewhere in the background.
Suddenly black smoke started to intermingle with the greyish steam that had come from throwing holy water on the demon's skin. It was thick and dark, and poured out her mouth and her eyes and her ears. She looked like she was choking on it. Dean felt the woman's body weaken and finally go slack.
The smoke poured into the room as Sam finished the exorcism, and with a sudden wave of force, it was pulled straight through the floor and vanished.
"It's over. The demon's gone," Bobby's voice proclaimed from somewhere. Dean couldn't tell where, and he didn't care.
He let go of Megan's mother and rolled onto the floor, breathing heavily. He felt like he had broken every bone in his body and he was bleeding everywhere but, hell, somehow he was still alive.
"Mom?" he heard Megan call, and he felt a rush of air as she crossed the room and knelt by him to check on her mother.
A few moments later Sam was kneeling by Dean's side too, looking concerned. "Dean?"
"I'm fine," Dean told him hoarsely. He forced himself to sit up, and instantly regretted it as a sharp pain shot through his side. Okay, so maybe he'd broken a rib. Or three.
He still didn't have a clue who he was. He'd sort of thought, with this whole demon-witch thing being connected to them losing their memories, that they'd get them back as soon as it was sent back to hell.
He glanced over at Sam questioningly. Sam seemed to get his meaning before he asked. "I still don't remember anything." They both looked to Bobby, but he was tending to the girl and her mother.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, baby," Megan's mother was saying. They were holding each other and crying, and generally having the sort of touchy-feely moment that Dean was beginning to realize made him feel incredibly awkward. "I don't know what happened to me. . ."
At least Megan and her mother seemed to be alright. Bobby was quickly explaining them, as briefly and vaguely as possible, about the demon possession and what had caused it. Megan's mother took it all in stride, but then Dean supposed she had to, seeing as how she had just been some demon's go-kart ride.
"Witchcraft!" she exclaimed when Bobby was finished, turning to her daughter alarmed. Megan burst into a fresh round of sobs by her side.
"What about Charles?" her mother asked, finally looking away from Megan but not letting go of her.
"Your husband's just unconscious, ma'am," Bobby told her. Apparently he had already checked on the man some time between when Dean had been wrestling around with possessed demon lady and the whole exorcism. Good to know. "He'll be fine."
He headed over to Sam and Dean and looked them over worriedly. "You boys alright there?"
"Yeah," Sam said slowly, "Except, uh. . ."
"We still don't have our memories back," Dean filled in for him.
Bobby nodded, rubbing his beard. "I thought about that. I don't think the demon had anything to do with you losing your memories, that sounds more like some sort of spell or curse. I figure the girl probably cast it on her own using that altar there and the book." He gestured at the wooden box and a black, leather-bound book that was open beside it. Dean was just noticing that not only did the box have strange symbols carved into it, those symbols had also been painted over in what looked a whole lot like blood. How nuts was this girl?
"Great, so we just have to ask her to undo her magic mojo?" Dean asked hopefully.
"I'm afraid it won't be that simple," Bobby said. Dean was getting real tired of hearing him say that. Why couldn't anything in their messed up lives be simple?
"Most spells and curses are one time deals," Bobby explained, "They're meant to kill an individual or cause serious harm – they're not meant to be reversible. I think she must have used this altar and the book to cast the spell. Hopefully when we destroy them that'll be enough to break any lingering spells that are still in effect."
"That doesn't sound too hard," Dean said warily, eyeing the box and the book, as if they would jump up and bite him just to prove him wrong. He thought back to the gasoline in his trunk, "Why don't we just set them on fire, or something?"
"I already tried that!" Megan cried, "As soon as I found out about Hannah and Kate I tried to burn the book in the fireplace – but it wouldn't burn!"
Great. Of course the cursed magical book didn't burn. Why hadn't Dean thought of that?
"So we hack it into little pieces?" He suggested lamely.
Bobby was frowning thoughtfully. "I figure a book like this has all sorts of magical protections. . ." he mused.
"Yeah, we kind of gathered that with the whole 'not burning' thing," Dean said.
"Do you know how to destroy it, Bobby?" Sam asked.
"Well, it's just a theory," Bobby said, "But I figure that salt is occasionally used to ward against witches and demons, not just ghosts, so it's possible that using salt might be enough to break the protection spells on the book. . . and then we can burn it."
"You're kidding, right?" Dean deadpanned. "This is your big plan? Salt is magically going to make this thing burn?"
"It's worth a shot," Sam said to him.
"If it doesn't work we'll just have to think of something else," Bobby agreed heavily.
Not ten minutes later they had the book in the backyard. Dean and Sam had dragged a can of gasoline and a bag of rock salt from the back of the impala, and a bonfire had been set up using the book and the altar for kindling. Sam dumped a liberal amount of salt over them.
"This had better work," Dean grumbled to himself, lighting up an entire book of matches and dropping them all on the pile. It was quite possibly the most insane thing he'd done so far, and that was saying a lot.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. Dean looked over at Sam, and the kid looked back at him, shrugging ever so slightly. Clearly he hadn't noticed anything happened either. Then the cover of the book started to crumple under the flame.
"It's working!" Megan cried out excitedly.
Dean was starting to feel a bit dizzy. Of course, this could be attributed to all the blood loss, not to mention the fact that he was still sure he had broken some bone somewhere and was bleeding internally. He really ought to see some sort of doctor-person about that. . . Sam was looking kind of unsteady. . . fuzzy too.
He barely had time to see the kid collapse before he fell to his knees and then landed face first in the dirt.
~tbc~
A/N: On a side note, we have a long list of dead people we'd like to see salted and burned. We believe it starts with Sir Isaac Newton and ends with Charles Darwin. Anyone in first year physics and biology might agree.