Demon's Trial

Chapter Eight: Escape Artists

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This was one of the strangest situations Dean had ever seen, and he had seen plenty of strange and crazy things.

Sam and Scott were at the house across the street. Gordon had put in an appearance, but he had an iron chain wrapped around a woman who was screaming obscenities as Thomas and Gerald Humphrey helped to restrain her, pouring salt down her throat. Looks like the demon next-door neighbor, Dean thought as he took in the crowd of neighborhood goers that was slowly building in size by the house next to Scott's. A tree in Scott's yard had toppled over and smashed a car next door; the alarm was still going strong.

Then he spotted the charred earth before Sam and felt his blood run cold.

"That's him!" Ava suddenly shouted, pointing at Gordon. "That's they guy who killed Scott in my vision."

"Gordon," Dean sighed as he slammed the Impala to a halt behind a red Pontiac GTO. "Go check on Sam, Ava."

Ava nodded and exited the car as Dean jumped out. "I got a Devil's Trap!" he yelled as he went to open his trunk. Seconds later, Gordon, Thomas and Gerald were hauling the screaming woman into it and slamming the trunk closed.

"You're bleeding!" Ava's voice reached Dean's ears, and he looked over to see that Sam's stitches had been torn, blood still dripping sluggishly down his left arm.

"What happened?" Dean asked.

"Your brother's a freak of nature," Gordon said before the other two men could so much as open their mouths. "Just psychic?" He looked over at Sam, and Dean could see that the kid's arm was starting to shake pretty bad as the blood continued to dribble out, but he didn't even seem to realize it. "He's not even fully human."

"Yes, he is!" Dean snapped angrily.

"I just thought he was inhumanly strong," Gordon continued as though he hadn't heard a word Dean said. "I mean, he came through that second-story window without breaking a bone in his body."

"What?" Dean whirled around to Scott's house, and sure enough, a window on the second floor was completely shattered.

"He was fighting the succubus," Thomas said loudly.

"Which he managed to trap against the ground with nothing more than his brain," Gordon pointed out.

"I don't care what my brother can and cannot do!" Dean shouted. "He is still my brother, and he is still human, so lemme tell you this: if you make one move towards him or Scott or even Ava, I will kill you here and now, I swear to God."

Gordon frowned, but said nothing. Dean glared at him before hurrying over to Sam.

Scott looked worried. Ava was clearly panicking. And Sam… Ava had pressed her jacket to the wound on his arm, but it was clear that the events of the evening had really taken their toll on him. His eyes were slightly unfocused and his head was lolling on his shoulders.

"Sam!" Dean said tersely as he dropped to his knees and grabbed Sam's shoulders. "Sammy!"

"De…" Sam's eyes landed on him, but it was clear he was losing the battle to stay conscious. He started to tip forward.

"Sammy, no!" But Sam was completely out, sagging bonelessly against Dean. He pulled his brother close and tried to rein his emotions in, but there was the faint sound of sirens and there were witnesses all over the place and the ground was cracked and burned and Gordon was here and he just could not deal with all this by himself.

"We need to go," Gerald said. "All of us, now."

Dean closed his eyes and nodded. "Scott, Ava, help me get Sam into my car," he said, and they both nodded quickly, although their eyes kept straying in Gordon's direction. Gordon, meanwhile, only stood and watched.

It took a little effort, but Sam was placed in the Impala's backseat, Ava volunteering to hold his head in her lap and keep applying pressure to the reopened gash in his arm. Gerald wanted to set up some other meeting place, but Dean refused. "That succubus was a trap to kill you and Thomas," he said shortly, but quietly. "Staying around us is only going to get you both killed, but I need someone to keep Gordon away while we get out." Gerald's eyes widened.

"Is he the one you said —?"

Dean nodded. "Please," he said, hating to ask, but having no other way to get out of this with starting a body count.

"What about my dad?" Scott suddenly asked, standing beside the passenger-side door of the Impala. "I can't just leave him here."

"The succubus attacked him, didn't it?" Thomas asked, and Scott nodded. "So, that means he's in no shape to go anywhere right now. I'll watch over him and fend off the cops for as long as I can."

"Tom —" Gerald started.

"This is my city, I know these people," Thomas cut him off. "Plus, my parents have the best lawyer in the state on their side. I'll be fine, Gerry." He smiled as confidently as he could, and it was enough. Dean thanked them both, shot one last glare at Gordon, and then the Impala's engine was roaring to life and he took off, zooming away from the sirens, from the witnesses, from Gordon and the others.

"We're in deep shit now, aren't we?" asked Scott.

Dean nodded. "We're in really deep shit, kiddo."

"You saw what Sam Winchester did," Gordon said the moment the '67 Chevy Impala had driven out of sight.

"Yeah, I did," Gerald said gruffly, "but that doesn't mean he's gonna be some soldier in a demon army or whatever the hell it is you think is goin' on."

"That is exactly what a demon told me," Gordon responded.

"Demons lie."

"Not when tortured hard enough."

"You know what," Gerald said, feeling beyond exasperated with the other Hunter, "you are a damn fine Hunter, Gordon, but no human child in their right mind would choose a demon army over other humans, especially when they have families and other people they care about, and especially not a kid like Sam Winchester." He thought for a moment before snorting. "Not that that means anything to a man who tracked down and killed his sister for being turned into a vampire against her will."

"She had to die," Gordon said, sounding so perfectly reasonable that Gerald wanted to smash the man's face in. "So does Sam, and so do all the other children like him."

"You are seriously fucked in the head," Gerald snapped. "Thomas, go check on the kid's dad, would ya?"

"What about him?" Thomas asked, still staring at Gordon.

Gerald chuckled. "I think the three of us are goin' to jail, son. Sorry about that."

Thomas shrugged, said, "I've already been through worse," and took off across the street to where Scott's father was leaning heavily against the doorway of his home.

"How did he manage to escape possession?" Gordon asked. "I'm assuming a demon took control of him, right?"

Gerald nodded. "The Winchester's saved him," he said, "and that means I owe 'em one. You're not killin' anyone, Gordon."

"What was that demon sayin' to Sam?" Gordon asked abruptly. "Why was she holdin' a knife to her wrist?"

Gerald had his suspicions, and God knew he wanted to track down those boys and find out if what he was thinking was actually true, but he wasn't about to tell a psychopath like Gordon. The sound of sirens grew louder and emergency vehicles started pouring into the street. Gerald shot a grin at Gordon. "No idea," he said. "Didn't make a lick of sense."

Then the police were all over them, but Gerald didn't care. He had saved the boys who rescued his nephew, and nothing else mattered.

Sam was unconscious through an exorcism (which left Mrs. Weston alive and completely grateful as they left her by the side of the road just outside of town), a license plate switch ("Someone in that crowd could have taken down the description and plates of the car," Dean explained to Scott and Ava), and a two-and-a-half hour drive to the outskirts of Peoria, Illinois, where Dean checked into a motel for the night.

"You should call your family," he told Ava, "go home, get engaged and… stuff."

"What about Gordon?" Ava asked. "What about my car?"

Dean shrugged. "I'll figure it out later," he said as he grabbed the first aid kit out of the trunk and headed back into the motel room, Ava following him silently. Sam was already laid out on one bed, and Scott was cleaning up the reopened gash on his arm. "Okay," Dean said, taking a seat next to Sam and pulling out the supplies he needed to stitch the wound closed once more. "This is probably gonna be weird to watch, so you might wanna turn on the TV or something."

Unsurprisingly, they both chose to observe the stitching process. Dean rolled his eyes as he finished threading the needle and inserted it into Sam's skin. His little brother's arm twitched, but Sam still didn't wake up. In fact, Dean sewed up the entire gash and Sam didn't wake once. Honestly, it worried him more than he wanted to admit aloud.

"All right," he sighed, sitting back and tossing the used needle onto the nightstand, "that should do it."

"Wow," Ava said after a moment," that was weird to watch."

"I notice you're not squeamish," Dean said, and Ava shrugged. "Anyway," he continued, turning to Scott, "can you tell me everything that happened while Ava and I were gone?"

And Scott did. It wasn't a pretty picture; Gordon had seen too much and Scott had heard more than Dean wanted anyone to hear ever. "Wait," Ava said, "how was cutting her arm open and bleeding some kind of temptation to Sam?"

Dean sighed; he'd already been over this with Ellen, Ash, Jo and even Andy. He especially didn't like doing this when Sam wasn't conscious. Regardless, he explained about how Sam, Ava, Scott and others like them had been fed demon blood at the age of six months, and about Sam's time spent in captivity with the demon that had done it, or what little he really knew about it. The fact of the matter was that Dean had never heard Sam's perspective on the exorcisms he had performed, let alone much of anything else. "I know he was addicted to that demon blood," he finished, "but the fact that he resisted shows how strong he is."

No one said anything for several minutes. "Why won't he wake up?" Ava asked at last.

"Exhaustion," Dean answered, "more than anything else. He's been pushing too hard for the last month, barely sleeping and doing research at all hours of the day and night." He stared down at Sam, thinking how his brother looked so young and innocent like this. It was a nice change from pinched brows and exhaustion, but he wasn't sure the end result was worth the price.

"I just wonder how you expect to see the means without the end. All this random, frantic action the two of you take." Sam and Dean were doing what they could, but Tara had a point. They had no idea where Azazel's plans were leading them to, so all they could hope to do was try and stop them by finding as many special children as they could and convincing them not to let Azazel influence them. Not for the first time, he wished that his father could have been a little more forthcoming about what he knew about the future, about Azazel's end game.

In the end, Dean managed to convince Ava to call her boyfriend and he showed up twenty minutes later to pick her up, filled with questions, confusion and worry over the fact that she was with three guys, one of whom was unconscious and covered in blood.

"Very long story," Ava said, staring up at the guy. "You think I could stay with you tonight?"

"Yeah," the boyfriend said (Ava had introduced him, but Dean didn't care to remember the guy's name, and it had already slipped his mind), "yeah, okay. Are you sure you're fine?"

"Yes, I am," Ava said to him. "Today's just been too long, you know?" She smiled. "But really, I'm fine, I'm safe. These guys…" She huffed a small laugh. "They're lifesavers."

The boyfriend nodded and smiled before meeting Dean's eyes. "Thanks for watching out for her, I guess," he said.

"Not a problem," Dean said. "Now go live a happy, normal life."

The boyfriend frowned in confusion, but Ava dragged him out of the motel room before he could say anything. "I'll call tomorrow, Dean," she said before the door shut.

"Finally," Dean sighed, dropping back onto the edge of Sam's bed. He looked over at Scott. "How you holdin' up?" he asked after a moment.

Scott shrugged. "I'm okay," he said with a shrug. "Just… Are you sure my dad'll be fine?"

"I'm sure," Dean said firmly. "You can call him in the morning on a payphone, let him know you're fine, but you can't tell him where you are until I'm a hundred percent certain that Gordon's out of the picture completely."

Scott nodded. "He wouldn't kill my dad, would he?"

"Doubt it," Dean said. "He didn't know you're special. I'm sure he'd kill me if given half a chance, though."

"Sounds bad," Scott said. "Why would he want to do that?"

Dean sighed and glanced down at Sam, who was still out. "Like I said, we had a bad Hunt together, and I'm sure he's realized that I'm more than aware of Sam's abilities. Both of those are probably enough for him to want me dead just as much as he wants Sam, you and with every other psychic kid like you out there dead." He shook his head. "Complete psycho."

"Yeah," Scott murmured, "so you've said."

Little else was said the rest of that night.

Tara was pissed. Stuck inside a Devil's Trap with salt covering the windowsills and the doorway was not the way she wanted to wake up. "Stupid girl," she muttered angrily, pulling at the ropes on her wrists and thinking of ways to torture Ava the next time she saw her. Not that she really would if she wanted to stay on Azazel's good side, but it was fun to imagine, right?

She sat in that chair all night long. It wasn't until room service arrived that things started going her way again.

"Hello?" called out the room cleaner as she opened the door. When she caught sight of Tara, she gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth.

"Hi," Tara said flatly. "Mind untying me?"

"Oh my God, what happened?" asked the girl as she rushed forward, messing up the line of salt around the doorway and dropping to her knees.

"Bad joke or something," Tara sighed as the girl worked the knots holding her wrists down free. "Like a satanic ritual."

The girl looked down at the Devil's Trap. "What is this?" she whispered, sounding horrified.

"Clean it up, finish untying me and I'll tell you," Tara said, trying not to sound mean or anything. The girl nodded, finished untying the knots and ran to her car to grab her carpet cleaner. A few minutes later, the Trap was broken just enough that Tara could move out of it.

"Thank you," she said to the girl as she left the room.

"Wait!" the girl called. "Don't you want to call the authorities or something?"

"Of course not," said Tara, turning back to the girl and allowing her eyes to show her true nature. "I'd only have to kill them. And speaking of…" She raised a hand and twisted it, causing the girl's neck to snap. She slumped to the carpet and Tara felt a little bit better about the entire situation.

Then she found out that Gerald and Thomas were still alive, that the succubus was gone, and that Hillary Weston had been through a successful exorcism. The fact that she had no scratches on her body meant that Sam had resisted the temptation of drinking demon blood, which meant that so long as he knew Dean was alive and around, he wouldn't go back to it. Dean Winchester was going to have to die first, and then Sam would be theirs to command and control to whatever ends Azazel had in store for them. Personally, she hoped it was going to be some kind of Apocalypse. That'd be really neat.

She stared at Scott Carey's house and wondered what the Winchester's next step would be.

Sam rose slowly to consciousness, slowly because the last thing he remembered was being tempted with demon blood and because Gordon had been close enough to gank him. Still, it seemed he was still alive, so maybe Dean had gotten them out before the cops could show up.

His left arm was throbbing, and he recalled that his stitches had ripped out during the fight with the succubus. He didn't want to move or anything, but a groan escaped and he clenched his closed lids tighter.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice and emotions were filled with concern. "You back with us, kiddo?"

Sam let out another groan before finally cracking his eyes open. Dean's worried face hovered over his own, a glass of water already in one hand. "Hey," Sam croaked out, and he tried to push himself into a sitting position, but Scott was suddenly there, gently guiding him up and stuffing pillows behind his back.

"You pulled out enough stitches yesterday," he offered by way of explanation before Dean was holding out the glass of water.

"How long was I out?" Sam asked after draining the entire glass.

"About fifteen hours," Dean sighed, setting the glass aside and sitting on the edge of Sam's bed. "We're in Peoria, and I got Ava to go home with her boyfriend."

"Oh," Sam said. "What about Gordon?"

"In jail, according to Tom's dad," Dean said with a small smile. "I exorcized Mrs. Weston before dropping her on the outskirts of Lafayette, and apparently she's not pressing charges, which is baffling the police, of course."

"What about Thomas and Gerald?"

"They're still being held for breaking and entering that house I found you guys outside of, but I think Tom's parents are speaking with the owners, so chances are those charges'll get dropped, too."

"So Gordon's gonna get out," Sam said flatly, but Dean shook his head with a smile on his face.

"Called in an anonymous tip," he said, smile turning into a grin. "They got a search warrant for Gordon's car and found evidence in the form of research on both you and Scott, along with his impressive arsenal of guns and knives. The fact that Scott's 'missing' means he ain't goin' nowhere anytime soon." He looked very pleased with himself. "They're also tryin' to find you, too, especially since witnesses' descriptions and your prints in Scott's house landed a match."

"What about you?" Sam asked. "I mean, you're supposed to be dead."

"What?" said Scott.

"Long story," Dean said dismissively, "but nothing's been said about me, so I'm still in the free and clear. Most they could have are vague suspicions and nothing to back them with." He looked pretty pleased with himself. "Anyway, Scott's dad knows he's alive, so no worries there. All we need is to figure out what to do so Scott can go back home and Gordon can stay locked up for a very long time."

Sam frowned. "Give me some time," he said, "and I can probably figure something out."

Dean nodded, and something filtered into his emotions that caught Sam's attention. It was something dark, like a bad memory or something. "Dean," Sam said hesitantly, "why was Ava still with you when you came back? What happened?"

After a long moment, Dean sighed and looked away. "Tara," he said, and Sam's insides froze.

"Not Tara from L.A.," he said, and Dean's shoulders dropped before he nodded.

"It was all a giant test-trap from Hell," Dean told him, not quite meeting his eyes. "The succubus was a trap for Thomas and Gerald, and Mrs. Weston was your test."

Sam struggled to stay calm. "They wanted to see if I'd go back to it," he said softly, and Dean nodded. "I didn't," he added.

"I know," Dean said, and now he met his eyes. "You did good, Sammy."

Sam swallowed and nodded. "What happened to… to Tara?"

"I uh…" Dean sighed before scowling. "I put her in a Devil's Trap at that motel we were stayin' in, but I needed to find you and Scott, so I never got a chance to go back and exorcize her."

"Which means she'll escape," Sam said. He dropped his head against the headboard and closed his eyes. "Dammit."

"Yeah," Dean said. "I know."

TBC...