Chapter 8

The Name Game

The three sat about the motel room with stacks of dusty books piled high like mountains around them.

Dean sighed in frustrated exhaustion. "So you don't remember the demon's name at all?"

"It started with an M, I think," Johnny replied with his head immersed in a book.

"This is gonna take forever," Dean complained.

Johnny turned to Dean. "Well, look, Mr. Demons-don't-have-names, if you had maybe paid a bit more attention you would know the name of the demon and we wouldn't be relying on me right now. So since I'm the only one that knows how to do my job; shut up and keep reading." With that, Johnny returned to his reading.

Dean slammed his book shut and swivelled in his chair to face Johnny head on. "Excuse me, bone head, but I'm not the one with an empty skull here."

Johnny raised his head with a small laugh under his breath. "Oh, well I'm not the one that attacks demons with scary words and church water."

"At least it does the job. What the hell do you do? Throw fire at them? I'm sure they hate that."

"Yeah, they do. And I'm sure they hate those wimpy bullets you shoot at them too. Please. For someone who's been doing this their whole life you sure are an amateur."

"I'm the amateur? You've been the Ghost Rider for, what, a couple years? And suddenly you know everything."

"Yes, sir. I'm a quick learner. Pretty astonishing for a bone head like me, isn't it?"

Dean prepared to make another retort when Sam interrupted by clearing off the center of the table to make way for his book, opened on a selected page, to show the others.

"Guys, I think I found something." Sam proceeded to read a paragraph out loud, following along with his finger so the others knew where he was in the text. "'Malphas, to some authors, is the great president of Hell, said to have forty legions of demons under his command. Can manipulate or conjure enemies' thoughts and desires-'"

"Sam, that all sounds great, but what makes you think this is the demon we're looking for?" Dean questioned, slightly bored with his brother's findings.

"You didn't let me get to that part."

"Then get to it," Johnny demanded.

Sam took a frustrated breath and continued. "When you each described your accounts I factored in the similarities and kept an eye out for that. Demons have personalities like any of us, so the similarities in their chosen forms might lead to learning that. Anyway, you both said it was possessing a male human, wore black and blue, and had a hoarse voice. Now, if you'll allow me to continue reading…" He shot Dean a warning glance and turned his eyes back to the paragraph where he left off. "'Is often depicted as a crow when not in human form, and speaks in a hoarse voice.' Get it? Black and blue are his ties to his animal counterpart, the crow. And he speaks in a hoarse voice. Now I don't know if he chooses humans for their voice or he creates that himself. I don't understand all of the workings of demons, but come on. That can't be a coincidence."

"Malphas… could be it," Johnny mused.

"You mean you still don't remember?" Dean accused.

"It was a long time ago. I sometimes have trouble remembering last week."

Dean rolled his eyes. "So let's pretend this is our guy. Does it say how to kill it?"

Sam scanned through the text and flipped back and forth through a few pages. He shook his head. "No. There really isn't much about him. Just some stories of what he's done."

Dean stood up and walked away from the table to clear his head. "So what are we gonna do now? Face it like any other demon? No way. Dad and I couldn't handle it; Ghost Face over here couldn't handle it…"

"Hey. It wasn't that I couldn't handle it. He just… got away," Johnny said, stepping in to defend himself.

Sam took a step toward his brother. "Dean, we'll be fine. We always are. The two of us, and Johnny, we can do this."

Dean nodded in agreement. "Well, first things first. We gotta find the bastard."

Just then there was a knock on the door. The room fell silent and its inhabitants grew tense. Dean reached for the 45' under his shirt and approached the door with caution. He peered through the peephole in the door. On the other side he saw a tall woman, curvaceous in all the right places, with long, wavy red hair. She donned a maid's uniform and a utility cart was parked behind her.

Dean turned to the others and tucked the 45' back in his jeans. "It's just room service."

Sam and Johnny relaxed a little, but kept their eyes on the scene anyway.

Dean opened the door. "Well, hi there," he began, switching on his Winchester charm.

The girl smiled. "Hello, sir. Do you require room service today?"

He looked the girl up and down, and came back with an impish remark. "Oh, boy, do I. But, uh, not at the moment… unfortunately… Could you come back later?"

The girl approached Dean with sultry eyes. "Are you sure? I provide excellent service."

Dean let a lustful sigh escape his lips as his eyes locked onto hers. "I bet you do."

She had him mesmerized like a black widow reeling in her prey. She brought a soft hand to his cheek. Upon contact, every vein in his body turned black and he collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.

Sam and Johnny rushed to the door. They tried to fight her off, but with a single touch the girl had them on the floor with black veins and hungry lungs.

She stood tall with the three hunters immobilized at her feet. She flipped her fiery hair over her shoulder and smiled a dangerous grin.

She blinked and her eyes were black as night.