Alistair led the two of them to a cordoned-off area of the castle. Unlike the rest of the place, the small room he ushered them into didn't look like it was lost in the 18th century somewhere. There was a computer set up on a collapsible table and a cold mug of coffee leaving rings on a steel bench.

Alistair headed to the small fridge. "Anything t' drink?"

"Isn't it a bit early?"

"Not in this job." The Scot took a swig from the bottle he withdrew, ignoring the tray of glasses. "'Specially on th' night shift."

"Night shifts are bad?"

"I got old believin' tha' phantoms deserved roastin'. Now here I am thirty years later, practically rubbin' shoulders with 'em and not able to touch th' damn bastards." He reached into the pouch around his waist and withdrew a cigarette.

"Could be worse. Could be sittin' in a cell somewhere countin' the days until they put me down." He cast a guilty look at the 'no smoking' sign before tucking the cigarette away again.

"You can't kill the ghosts?" Sam asked.

"I can but I can't." Alistair said. " This is Glamis Castle. No one would admit it, but th' biggest draw is th' ghosts. And if any of 'em turned nasty…"

"You were in the right place." Dean said.

"This job, y' don't just get out of it, even when you're old." The Scotsman said. "Y' can't, after y' know what's out there."

Sam gave a reluctant nod.

"I was gonna tell y' 'bout th' job once y' settled in more." Alistair said. "So y' wouldn' stick out quite so painfully. How'd y' know?"

"Strange things have happened here." Sam said. "Strange and terrible enough to scar. To leave an imprint."

"Impressive." Alistair nodded, his face betraying nothing. "Raph mentioned y' were psychic."

"Actually." Dean cleared his throat. "I'm the one doing the whole John Edwards bit at the moment."

Alistair cast a look between the two of them. "Fascinatin'." He said. "Y' often alternate psychic abilities?"

Now there's a different way to put it.

"Um, yeah. Our best guess is I'm somehow unconsciously picking up guys with the same level of screwed up as me." Dean glanced back at Sam.

His brother gave his half-grin. "Hey, don't look at me. This is more or less your case."

"Okay. Yeah. Um, all these… imprints, they seemed to be tied to someone called Dantalion. Who could only be a demon considering who has left behind the… imprints."

"Heh. Well, you Americans cottoned on faster than th' last demon slayer."

"Demon. Slayer." Sam said slowly.

"The last… demon… slayer. Was it… around the nineties some time? Mousy kid, might have stayed in the Drunken Unicorn."

The Scotsman was quiet for a moment. "Robson Connelly." He said finally. "It's no' easy for me, mine bein' th' last face they see 'fore it gets 'em. By rights it should be me, 'cause I'm here all th' time."

"You send others away to be killed by this… Dantalion?" Sam exclaimed in horror. "That's just-"

"Listen-"

"Dean, it's time to walk away."

But some sort of macabre interest held him to the spot, wanting to find out all he could about this demon. Demon slayer. I like that.

"Y' think it's only our kind y' have a reputation with?"

"What?"

"What?"

Subconsciously Sam knew what the man was doing. He was playing on the obsessive streak that both brothers had inherited from their father. And it had the desired effect.

"What reputation?"

"You killed a demon. Th' bad o' the bad. And then y' forced another back where it came from. Y' did good for our side, but there are others that ain't so happy. Now yer both back on the radar, you'll have all sorts of nasties out fer your blood."

Alistair had about a minute before both boys left the shire of Angus far behind them, so he had to use what time he had left to convince them. But then, that's what he did best.

"There's only a handful tha' faced down a fully-fledged demon and lived to tell th' tale. Robson was the last of my generation to take on a demon and live, but he still died anyway. This thing in my castle, it learns from each hunter it goes up against. And like it or not, you two are the next in the food chain. If ye walk away now, we work back through the chain right up to that cute little nine-year-old orphan that lost her parents to Azazael."

The idea of a nameless, faceless child being forced to confront a demon horrified Dean more than it once would have. "How could you live with yourself if you made a kid do something like that?"

"You want to survive, you keep your morals in check." Alistair said in an ugly voice. "The way of the world." He cast a look back to the door. "This is war. And in war people die. Mothers and fathers and children. We are th' only things standin' between this world and the never ending darkness. Don't y' see? We are the soldiers. And th' demons are learnin' all th' time." He stopped and suddenly looked immensely old.

"Y' can run away or y' can fight. Not both."

"It started when King Solomon first really used th' Lesser Key. From then on he had a bit of a reputation as a witch."

"A witch?"

"In the old days if y' cast out a demon, y' would have been attributed with magical powers."

"Really." Sam had seen some amazing things in the years before being reunited with his brother. He had seen things that had absolutely no reasonable explanation. He had met men and women and demons that could do some astounding things. And, of course, there had been Stanford's Professor Devlin, who never came out and said it, but he strongly suspected was some sort of supernatural entity.

To him witches tended to be associated with evil, and the idea of the sparkling creation of Harry Potter was ludicrous. If he ever met a real, human witch, he doubted he would ever believe it.

Yes, he had seen and done some remarkable things. But Sam Winchester still had trouble believing in magic.

"These demons were plaguing Solomon's lands, so Solomon and his most powerful magi banished them."

"Banished to where?"

"Let me finish. There were a heap of 'em, seventy-two or sixty-eight, dependin' on which publication y' work by, each attributed with a different sin. Y' know, wilting crops, disease, the death of the first born…"

"Frogs and locusts." Dean put in.

Alistair almost smiled then. He looked around the thinning bar of the Drunken Unicorn and took a sip from his ale mug. The capacity this man had for holding his alcohol without getting drunk was amazing.

"They ranged through from servants t' the East King of Hell hisself. I don't know how many years Solomon and his magi must have spent looking fer them, but y' can take a guess."

"Christ. It took Dad twenty-two years to find one." Then something funny occurred to Dean and he smiled. "Solomon was a hunter. Of sorts."

"Yer followin' in some famous footsteps, boys." The Scotsman said. "Dantalion, he's a professor. In Arts and Sciences. Myth says he can manipulate men's minds. All we can think of is tha' over the years, th' exorcism weakened and finally wasn't there anymore."

"You mean exorcisms just wear off?"

"I don't get it." Sam said. "If he had all these legions working for him, and had all this power, why did he decide he wanted to live here? In Scotland?"

Alistair frowned. "Fer your sake I'll ignore your implications." He said.

"Sammy, not even demons like living in Hell." Dean said. "If they're powerful enough they can shape the land around them and force others to obey them, but it's still Hell. Some demons run away. Some stay and fight it out. And others go completely mad." Both his brother and the Scot glanced at him, surprised at this insight.

"A mad demon. What a fun concept." Sam said dryly.

"Anyway." Alistair interrupted. "You heard th' story of th' Monster in th' Castle?"

"No." Both brothers said at once.

"It's said tha' one of the first Earls had a deformed firstborn son. T' avoid anyone else dicoverin' this shame, they kept him locked up and only took him out at night. When he died, th' rooms were sealed up, but it's said tha' the malformed Earl still walks the corridors."

Despite the fact that both the Winchesters were in their thirties, there was always something about a good ghost story that suckered them right in.

"Th' Earl became th' Monster, or th' Monster became th' Earl, it's hard t' tell since there are about half a dozen different versions of the story. One writer who passed through here a few years back actually alluded the Monster to a demon. Still no clue who gave her the idea. There's supposedly ways t' see whether th' Earl is still wanderin' around, but I thought it was all a bunch of superstition."

"Yeah?"

"Then abou' twenty years ago, things started happenin'. Suddenly someone was tripping all these Monster-findin' devices, leavin' no trace behind."

"Twenty years." Dean said. He glanced at his brother. "Gabby would have been what? Thirteen?"

"Don't twist your arm patting yourself on the back." Sam retorted.

"I'm thinkin' tha' the demon might have heard about all this myth, the Monster, the Earl, maybe even tha' damn book, and has decided to take up residence. It's in the castle, hidin' among th' ghosts. I can feel 'im, each day I go t' work. He knows who I am, and knows I can't do anythin' about 'im."

"Yeah, well. He's at the end of the road now." Dean said harshly.

"Dean, are you nuts?" Sam exclaimed. He turned back to Alistair. "How many civilians has it killed?"

"Over twenty years? One hundred and five."

"How many hunters have gone in?"

A longer pause. "Thirty seven."

"How many have come out?"

For a moment it looked like Alistair wouldn't answer. "Two." He said finally.

"This is suicide." Sam said. "We can't do this. You can't expect us to do this."

"What other choice is there?" Dean argued. "This Dantalion, he's one of the big guns of the demon world. Take him out and we'll have put a professor-sized hole in their hierarchy."

"And what about his soldiers?"

"Are you chickening out? We've taken them down before."

"You have." Sam said quietly, and Dean blinked. You were the one that shot the Yellow-eyed Demon. You killed his son and exorcised his daughter. You were the one that forced his wife back to Hell.

"Sam, what if Dantalion makes a run for it? Ends up somewhere else? Somewhere we can't get to it? Solomon imprisoned the bastard only God knows when, with only the Key. The least we can do is send it back to Hell, even if it is only temporary."

Sam hated it when his brother started to put together a logical argument. He hated it even more when he was right. "But-"

"Lads, it's more serious than y' think." Alistair cut in again. "I'm all for your bravado, but Dantalion isn't th' end of it."

"Huh?"

"Think, boy. There were all those demons imprisoned. If one is out…"

Then all of them are.