Chapter 3

They came into Black Springs at twilight. The sun had just disappeared behind the ragged hills, but the wide sky was still painted in lurid shades of vermillion and gold, umber and rose, lighting up the high, wispy cirrus clouds that stretched out to the west.

Dean drove slowly down the main street, wondering what the hell he was supposed to be looking for.

It could have been any small town, the pavements wide, the traffic light, moving slowly, as they were. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; people were walking, shopping, a harassed mother with a stroller and a toddler trailing behind glared at them briefly as he stopped for her and she hustled her family across the street.

"Doesn't look too bad," Sam said as he looked around. "If there're demons here, they're being inconspicuous."

"Yeah, that'll make them easy to find," Dean remarked sourly.

The drive had taken a little under six hours and he was hungry, and tired, and still uncertain about how they were going to take down the demons – plural – always assuming they could find them. "You see a motel anywhere?"

Sam peered out through the windshield, shading his eyes against the glare of the sunset sky on the store front windows. "Looks like one up there."

Dean nodded as he saw the flickering neon sign. The engine growled under the touch of his foot on the accelerator and he winced at the scrape of the exhaust on the cracked asphalt drive when he turned in.

Another roach-motel, he thought as he pulled up in front of the office, but it was cheap and they'd long ceased to be that fussy about their sleeping arrangements. He consoled himself with the knowledge that at least the queen-sized beds would give him more room than Ellen's military cots, signing the register in the fake name on his credit card with an impossible-to-replicate flourish.

They unloaded the car in silence, working together with the easy familiarity of long practice. The room was, as predicted, just a room, two beds, table, chairs, couch, kitchenette in the corner, bathroom on the other side. Looking around, he decided it was a bit cleaner than the last one.

Sam dumped his bags on the left-hand bed, pulling out the laptop and setting it up on the table. Dean locked the door, and drew the curtains, running a line of salt along the window ledges and across the threshold. From what his brother had been reading last night, it wouldn't do much against the more powerful demons, but it would keep the grunts out.

"What are you looking for?" He walked up behind his brother, looking over his shoulder at the screen.

"Ash said there were earth movements. I'm not sure that has anything to do with opening a gate, but it gives us a place to start, if I can find the epicentres." Sam's fingers flew across the keyboard.

"Here." He pointed to the screen as a map of the area loaded. "Look at where they all join up."

Dean leaned closer, eyes narrowing as he looked at the backlit local map. "Looks like a quarry."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, bringing up another search screen as he thought of something else. He started typing and after a moment, another map of the same area came up, this one with two thick lines crossing it, intersecting at the same quarry. "Now that's interesting."

"What?" Dean looked at the lines on the second map. "What are those?"

"Ley lines," Sam said, glancing at his brother's sceptical expression. "It's fairly established, theoretically at least. Lines of energy that cross the earth, channelling power and energy from point to point. Where they intersect, is known as a node – it's often the site of an ancient monument, or a place of special power. The science behind it's unproven, like most of the things we deal with." He turned back to the screen. "But the intersection here, I think that's meaningful. I think if there is a gate, that's exactly where it will be."

Dean straightened up, looking from the screen to his brother, his expression bemused. "You know, you get geekier by the day, dude."

Sam gave him a mocking shrug. "One of us has to know what we're dealing with."

"Hilarious." Dean walked back to the bed, unzipping the big duffle and pulling out a shotgun. "If that's the place, have you come up with a brilliant plan to deal with these demons? Not like we can go in with guns."

"No. Not really," Sam allowed with a quiet exhale. "We need more information. How many of them, where they're located. We can probably use ourselves as bait, draw them into a devil's trap, but that's going to depend on a lot of things."

"Yeah." Dean broke the gun, holding the barrel to the light as he checked it. "That's an understatement."

"You think we need help?" Sam looked at him. "Maybe call Bobby? Or Jeb?"

Dean thought about it, then shook his head. "No, we can do this; but we have to get a handle on what's here."

The closest place to eat was a bar with a grill. Dean's gaze scanned the place as they walked in, noting the layout, the exits, the traps and through-ways in the building. Booths lined one wall, tables of varying sizes filled the rest of the space. Two pool tables and a jukebox took up most of the other side of the wide room. The bar ran almost the entire length of the back wall, with a servery through one side and mirror-backed shelving down the rest.

The place was clean and the smells from the kitchen were good. They ordered their meal and a couple of beers and found an empty table in the rear corner. Sam hid a smile as his brother took the back corner of the table, giving him a hundred and eighty degree view of the place without it looking like he was looking around. Old habits died hard, and his father had always chosen that kind of seat, using anything and everything to be able to see every approach, no matter what the situation. He sat down in the chair opposite his brother, knowing he was partly screening Dean from the rest of the room. That was the idea.

"So, how are we going to be able to tell if some of these people are possessed?" Dean asked, tipping his bottle up and swallowing a mouthful as his gaze continued to move, more slowly now, paying attention to the individuals in the room.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. He leaned on his elbows on the table, his gaze flicking to the glass-covered print behind his brother. Through it, he could see most of the room as well. "They can look ordinary, like everyone else. We'd have to wait for them to do something … I don't know, out of the ordinary, demonic."

Dean snorted softly. "Right."

"We can check with EMF, that worked on the plane," Sam suggested. "Or you could walk around muttering 'Christo' under your breath."

"Wow, on a roll," Dean commented dryly. "You buying what Ash said about the gate? That demons can cross over to here through one?"

"Sure." Sam shrugged, looking his brother curiously. "Yeah, why not?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "Because if there are, why aren't there more?"

"Bobby said there were, more this year than he's ever heard of," Sam pointed out. "Maybe that's why. Something's opened the gates, some of them, the small ones?"

"What'd Ash say about how to open one? How the demons can open one?"

"He didn't, really. Said it wasn't his field of expertise," Sam told him with a half-smile. "Said that Bill was the expert. And Pastor Jim, according to Ellen. No one else knows much about how it all works."

"And they're both dead." Dean pulled in a deep breath. "Awesome."

"I brought a few of Bill's books with us," Sam said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug as he drank his beer. "One of 'em said that from the outside, the gate needs blood – a lot of blood."

"How much is 'a lot'?"

"Hundreds of people."

Dean's eyes narrowed as he looked back at his brother. "You're telling me that it needs a massacre? Of people?"

"Yeah," Sam said, making a face. "There's no info I could see about opening it from the inside."

"How the hell did Yellow-Eyes get out then?"

"I don't know. Maybe there's something in one of Dad's lockups? Files? More information?"

"Maybe." Dean looked away, not all that sure that he wanted to know all his father had known now.

His gaze travelled around the room slowly. The place was well-lit, but not overly bright, the overhead lights incandescent, giving the room a soft, golden glow. The bar area, with small tables and stools took up the centre. Around the walls, larger tables and chairs were filled with people, eating, drinking, talking. Behind the bar, two doors led to the kitchen; on the far side of the room, he could see the softly lit signs for the bathrooms and the rear exit, behind a couple of pool tables. The place was busy, but not crowded, and as he looked along the side of the room opposite to them, he could see the tables clearly. He looked at the table in far corner, and whistled slowly.

"I don't believe it," he said softly.

Turning around in his chair, Sam followed his brother's gaze. He saw the bright gleam of copper-red hair first, as the young woman bent her head over whatever she had on the table in front of her.

He glanced back at Dean. "You think she's hunting these demons too?"

Dean shook his head, his eyes fixed on the woman on the other side of the room. He'd wanted to find her again, but he hadn't thought they actually would. "I don't know. I guess so, no other reason to be here."

Sam studied his brother's expression. He couldn't recall seeing Dean so fixated on someone before.

"Dean, are you worried about her hunting here, or are you trying to figure out a way to hook up?"

Dean blinked as the words penetrated, turning to look at his brother. "What? No."

Sam raised an eyebrow sceptically. "You sure seem … interested in her."

Dean looked away. Seeing her again, after the dream; remembering that hunt, remembering the locket. It was like an omen, it made him feel both uneasy and as if something was about to happen. He couldn't shake off the memory, now that it had returned. And here she was. A hunter.

He reined in his thoughts. Well, it might not be her. Ten years was a long time. People changed. And between the ages of ten and twenty, most people changed beyond all recognition.

"Yeah, uh, no." He replayed what Sam had last said. "Well, Ellen and Jeb said she was the hunter who took out the bloodwraith. So it might not be such a bad idea to find out what her take is on this place."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay, let's go and find out."

Their food arrived at that moment, the blonde waitress setting the plates in front of them with a wide smile. Dean looked down at his burger, packed with bacon, onions, dripping with a homemade barbeque sauce, the scent practically an aphrodisiac.

"We'll eat first," he decided, settling back into the chair.

Sam glanced at the glass on the wall, giving him an oblique view of the table across the room. "Better eat fast, looks like she's leaving."

Dean lifted his head, chewing fast. "Dammit, stay here."

He rose quickly, and walked towards the entrance, hoping to intercept her. But she was turning, and heading for the back exit instead. He hesitated mid-floor. Go out the front and around the back to meet her? Or follow her and hope that he could catch up? He didn't want to make a scene.

He turned to the front, and went outside, increasing his speed to a run as he rounded the building. He came around the rear corner, into a small parking lot. It was empty. He looked around, feeling his frustration rise.

There was no movement or sound in the lot. He walked slowly to the rear exit of the building, and tried to see where she might have gone. But the shadowy walls surrounding the lot gave too many possibilities. There were gaps between the buildings, no fence – she could have taken any one of them.

He heard the scrape of a shoe on the gravel behind him, and spun around, his hand automatically reaching for the handgun he usually carried in his jacket pocket – the gun that was sitting in the duffle beside his bed right now.

"Dean Winchester, isn't it?" The woman walking towards him was tall and curvaceous. Her long dark hair was loose over her shoulders, gleaming like a raven's wing in the light from the exit sign. Her expression was pleasant, he thought, until he looked into her eyes. He backed away slowly.

"Do I know you?"

"No, I don't think so. But I know you. I know all about you and your brother and your father." She blinked and he saw the flat black fill her eyes.

Dean felt a thread of fear tickle his nerves. A demon.

"What do you want?" he asked, his mind frantically going through his possible options.

She glanced behind him, and he turned to look over his shoulder, heart sinking as two men appeared from the shadows of the building behind him.

"Oh, we want you, Dean." She smiled at him. "We want you."

He moved sideways, fast, before they could outflank him. But the demons moved fast as well, closing in on him as they cut off his escape. Stopping under the pool of light from the streetlamp, he waited for them, balanced, ready. He had no weapon that would hurt them, no ritual of exorcism to get rid of them, no trap ready to fool them into entering. None of that mattered. When the options are reduced, the corresponding choices become clearer.

The first demon closed quickly, swinging at him. He deflected the blow easily with his forearm, and his fist shot out, connecting satisfyingly with the demon's nose. The second demon's fist swung at him, and he felt the breeze of its passing as he ducked, turning and sweeping his leg out, sending it to the ground.

"You'll have to do better than that," he said, pivoting slowly on the ball of his foot, keeping both demons in view.

The second time they came at him together. He used the weight of one against the other as his arm was grabbed, but his attention was too firmly on his opponents, and he didn't see the woman step in behind him, her arm rising, then falling as she brought the weighted cosh down on the back of his head.

He fell instantly, unconscious, not even aware of the snap of the thin leather around his neck as the demon's hand was caught in it and then threw it aside.

"Pick him up." The woman looked down at his sprawled body contemptuously. "He'll be bait for his brother."

Sam had finished his dinner. He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since Dean had left. Too long, he thought. If Dean had found her, caught up with her, he would have called. He looked around the bar, feeling his anxiety rise. Wait here? Or go looking?

He looked down at the burger Dean had left. It was cold.

Too long.

He stood abruptly, throwing a couple of bills onto the table for the meal, and strode towards the rear exit. When he came out into the small parking lot, he paused, looking around. The place was still, quiet. A few cars were parked there, but he could see between them, see that the lot was empty of people. He walked slowly out into the lot, his eyes scanning the ground, trying to find something, some indication of where his brother was, what might have happened.

A small gleam of light from the ground beneath the street lamp caught his eye. He walked over to it, and looked down at the pendant that lay there, still attached to the black lacing that usually held it around Dean's neck. He crouched down, and picked it up, turning it over on his palm, noting that the lacing had been torn at the clasp, pulled off.

He stood slowly, his heart booming in his chest. His brother was gone, taken by someone, only Sam had a good idea about who.

They knew us, Sammy. Dean's voice replayed in his mind. They knew about us, about Dad. The Crossroads demon had known who Dean was when he'd summoned it.

Sam thought that maybe most of the demons knew who they were. Word apparently travelled fast among the hellspawn. And they'd known for a while where their father was.

He shook his head impatiently, swearing under his breath as he headed for the car. They'd walked into a trap, unprotected, unwittingly, with no idea that they were already marked.

Pulling into the slot in front of the room, Sam waited in the car for a few minutes. Nothing was moving in the motel's forecourt or the open lot and he got out, going to the rear and opening the trunk. A duffle lay on the false bottom of the trunk, heavy and awkward to carry and he hauled it out, locking the car then turning to the room door.

He'd brought a couple of dozen of Bill's books, and he dumped the bag on the table, pulling them out and stacking them up when the room was locked and the salt line replaced. There had to be a way to find his brother, find him and get him out of here, he thought, sitting down at the table and looking through the pile. Some way.

It's inside me, I can feel it. You shoot me. You shoot me! You shoot me in the heart, son!

Sam flinched back from the sudden memory, his face screwing up.

Sam, don't you do it. Don't you do it.

You shoot me, son! Shoot me! Son, I'm begging you! We can end this here and now! Sammy!

He leaned his head against his hand, trying to shut out the voices of his family.

He still didn't know if he'd made the right choice, his father begging him to kill him and Dean, dying against the cabin wall, pleading with him not to. Maybe it could've been over then. Maybe it would've broken his family beyond any possibility of repair, an impossible wall between himself and his brother forever. He said it in the hospital; they were just starting to be brothers again, after the pain and division that had characterised his last year with them. He couldn't lose that.

His father had taken the matter into his own hands less than two weeks later, in any case, devastating both of them. He could see the cracks, where his brother had tried to plaster them over, fill them with killing and tracking and no time for thought and no room for feeling. He wasn't doing any better, he knew. He couldn't get it straight for himself, not the way he felt, not what he'd done – failed to do – none of it.

The Colt had disappeared the day his father had died, along with the knowledge they needed, the knowledge their father must have had of what had happened twenty-three years ago in an ordinary house in Lawrence, to an ordinary family.

His brother wouldn't talk about it. Dean would talk around it, over it, under it, but not about it. He knew he felt responsible for their father's choice, felt as if he'd killed their father himself, but aside from that one time, when the car had pulled over and he'd let out some of the misery that had filled him, he wouldn't discuss what had happened or why or what they could possibly do about it.

Getting up from the table, Sam walked to the room's tiny kitchenette, forcing himself to focus on making coffee, filling the pot's reservoir, spooning the grounds into the filter. He couldn't think of what had happened now. He needed to concentrate on what was happening, what would happen if he didn't figure out a way to get his brother back.

Hell isn't known for planning.

Ash had said it and the books from the roadhouse had verified it, to some extent, Sam thought as he listened to the gurgles and hisses from the pot on the counter. Children who had been visited by a demon, some of them losing their mothers in the same, horrific way. Psychic powers suddenly blooming in the same year. The demon's visits continuing, he realised, thinking of Amelia and her mother in Salvation. Someone had a plan. For him. For the others. For more innocents than they could ever hope to locate and warn.

For what?

Normal year, I hear of, say, three demonic possessions. Maybe four, tops. This year I hear of twenty-seven, so far. You get what I'm saying? More and more demons are walking among us – a lot more.

The coffee pot gave a long hiss and Sam picked up a cup from the shelf, filling it absently as the memory of Bobby's warning drifted back to him. Why were the demon possessions increasing … now? What did it have to do with him and Max and Andy? Why had his family – and theirs – been chosen? Were the two things even connected?

The Yellow-Eyed demon hadn't been specific, he thought. They got in the way, it'd said. His mother and Jessica. Got in the way of … My plans for you … you and all the children like you.

But demons weren't all that big on planning. Or maybe some of them were.

Psychic humans. A war in Hell. A war on earth … maybe. A demon who'd been planning something for the last twenty-three years, minimum. Taking Dean to bait a trap for him. For what? It kept coming back to that. What did they want?

He looked at the books on the table as he carried cup back and sat down. There was too much they didn't know. If his father had known what Yellow-Eyes was doing, he'd taken it to his grave and they would never be able to find out now. Bobby was the first to admit that he wasn't in the league of Bill or Jim Murphy, not about the lore of Hell. He'd been trying to catch up, he'd said, the last time Sam had spoken to him, but for him, as for them, there was too much to read, to learn and no time.

Looking at his watch, Sam swallowed. Dean had been gone for eight hours. He didn't have the time to sit around and speculate on the bigger picture right now either. He needed answers and he needed them fast.

It was almost dawn when he leaned back, rubbing both hands over his face tiredly, the laptop's screen bright in the periphery of his vision, the text on the page in front of him blurring.

Hierarchies and histories, traps, spells, divinations and summonings … the details spun in dense vortices through his thoughts … names and powers and rituals and the far-too vivid descriptions of what happened to those who trafficked with demonkind without sufficient thought, preparation or will power to resist.

The books had a lot of information, most of it useful. None of it could help him with what he needed right now. Closing the cover of the one open in front of him, Sam pulled the computer closer, flicking past the search screens for the map he'd pulled up earlier. Something was happening out at the quarry, he thought. It would be a place to start.