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Chapter Twenty-Six
"Keely Fearguson?" muttered Dean to Sam as the crowd applauded the matronly woman, who beamed dotingly at her audience. "What sort of a name is Keely Fearguson?"
"I dunno," Sam murmured back, "But there's something…"
The growling that travelled to the Winchesters through the ground rather than the air cut him off, and he glanced down at the Cockapoo-ed part-Hellhounds: Lennie and Lara were both glaring at the smiling woman, and their eyes began to glow faintly red.
"Oh, crap," groaned Sam as realisation dawned, "You've gotta be kidding me. I mean, seriously, Keely Fearguson?"
"What?" Dean hissed, looking in bewilderment at the dogs, "What is it? Are they pickin' up on the evil doilies here?"
"If only," moaned Sam. "The perfectly inflected Latin should've been a give-away, along with the Brit spellings. And the Oxford commas."
"What the hell?" demanded Dean sotto voce.
"The Crobby stories!" Sam hissed back, "About culturally enriching man-dates! That's no patron saint of fan fiction, Dean – that's Crowley!"
"Huh?" Dean turned to the stage, beautifully outlined eyes bugging. "That? Is Crowley?" He cocked his head. "Wow, and I thought I had problems with structural engineering in the bra department."
"Keely Fearguson, aka Bobby's Bird," Sam sighed glumly. He pulled the small compact from a pocket, and whispered to it, "Mirror mirror, in this hall, who's demonic most of all?"
Do I really have to tell?
That is Crowley, King of Hell.
Plus a feminising spell.
"Sonofabitch!" yapped Dean, as the applause died away.
The moment 'Keely Fearguson' opened her mouth the unmistakeable accent fell out. "It warms my heart," 'she' began, "To see so many of you here, to take an interest in my little gathering of like-mined writers. And I cannot begin to describe how excited I am to see how much so many of you have improved in just these few days!"
"Why is he doing this?" Sam wondered out loud as the crowd applauded again, "What's he getting out of it? Is he somehow sucking the fanfic out of people to write his Crobby stories, and leading them to kill each other as some side effect? And if so, why bother with the spell?"
"And I thought Becky was a sick little monkey," growled Dean, reaching for the demon-killing knife in his totally adorable boot.
"No!" Sam put a hand on his harm, "We gotta find out exactly what he's doing, how he's doing it, and why, if we're going to put a complete stop to it."
"If I stab him, that'll put a complete stop to it," Dean grinned smugly.
"As attractive as that option sounds, no," Sam sighed a little wistfully. "If we confront him now, without all the intel, he'll just find a way to wiggle out of it, he's as slippery as an eel. We gotta catch him with the smoking gun, in flagrante delicto."
"We got the smoking doilies," Dean pointed out, "And the thought of anybody delicting that woman's flagrante is more than my brain can cope with, without a whole lot more alcohol."
"For now, we just wait," Sam stipulated, "Find out exactly what he's doing."
Ms Fearguson gushed briefly over what a wonderful time everybody had had, then moved on to the next topic. "Now, while the idea of these gatherings is to meet up with fellow writers for the pleasure of reading and writing, I do like to acknowledge some who have really made an effort, and given us all particular enjoyment, as judged by you, the upvoting public!" She gestured to some of the organising committee, who picked up the demonic doilies and passed the first one to her. "And so I would like to make a few awards to those who have been voted by you, their fellow writers, to be the most popular fanfics produced at our meeting!" She displayed the first doily. "First of all, a doily crown for Most Popular Story Featuring Sam Being Traumatised By Being Stuffed Into A Very Small Box Indeed For Such A Large And Buff Body goes to…"
"This must be how he's targeting people," Sam observed, as a smiling woman made her way to the stage to be crowned with one of the diabolical decorative motifs, then scampered back to her seat. "I gotta note their names down, we'll have to track 'em down afterwards, see if we can figure out how they're being turned into murderers."
"I don't want us to split up, if we can help it," Dean muttered back, "But if she gives out more than a couple of doilies, I don't see how we can avoid it…"
"And our next one goes to someone who tackled a genre that is fraught with danger, but pulled it off magnificently!" enthused Ms Fearguson. "The doily for Most Popular Story Featuring A Self-Insertion Into The Supernatural Verse goes to… Jaqueline Hyde!"
"That's you!" yipped Dean.
"I gotta go!" Sam shot back, leaping to his feet and doing a convincing impression of a fangirl being told that she was being recognised for her fan fiction writing.
"Be careful!" Dean hissed, his face worried.
Sam made sure he kept beaming and gesturing as he headed for the stage, managing to look as though he was on the verge of tears of happiness.
"My, you are a tall one!" trilled Ms Fearguson, reaching up to crown 'Samantha' with a doily.
"Oh, thank you so much!" Sam gushed, seizing the older woman's hand, "Thank you! This is just, oh, I can't believe it, thank you so much!"
"Well done, darling," Ms Fearguson said as, with a wave to the audience and a wipe of his eyes, Sam headed back to his seat.
"Well, that's one we don't have to track," Dean noted, as RJ, entranced, reached up for the doily on Sam's head. "Hey, don't touch that, little dude, we don't know what it might do yet."
"But now we've got one, we have a better chance of finding out," Sam replied, taking note of the woman who won a doily for Most Popular Use Of An Adult Toy As Part Of An Actual Plot. "It must be the patterning in the crochet that's important…"
"Our next award is for Most Popular Alternative Universe Story, and it goes to… ImpalaDude!"
"Huh?" went Dean. "Did she just say…"
"It's you!" Sam juggled dog leads and reached over to grab RJ, "Go get your doily! Don't tip him off!"
Dean's act of being a woman overwhelmed by acclamation was very convincing. In fact, Sam thought, he wasn't sure that there was too much acting being required at all.
'Dee' managed to gush her thanks, and a mascara-tinted tear even made its way down one cheek.
"Don't rush off, love," Ms Fearguson smiled dotingly, "Because we also have another doily here – the prize for Most Upvoted Writing Of Gratuitous Winchester Nudity also goes to you!"
"Oh, fuck," Sam muttered to himself as Dean was crowned with a second doily, and his mascara began to run in earnest. "We're never going to hear the end of it, RJ, you know that."
Having tearfully acknowledged the applause of the crowd, Dean headed back to his seat. "And you said I wrote crap," he sniffled, taking a tissue from a sleeve and dabbing carefully at his face.
"You did write crap," Sam confirmed tartly. "Until that spell kicked in. Then it became a different kind of crap."
"Says you," Dean humphed, "Says Mr I-Only-Got-One-Doily."
"Jesus, Dean," Sam muttered as the organisers made some closing remarks of thanks and wished everybody happy writing in future, "We're here to do a job, okay? 'Popular' doesn't necessarily mean 'good'. Complete crap can be popular. Justin Bieber is popular. Twilight books and movies are popular."
"Well, if I got upvoted so much, somebody must think that what I wrote was worthwhile," Dean sniffed disdainfully.
Keely Fearguson took the stage once more. "Well, darlings, as much as I'd love to stay and mingle with so many talented and devoted writers, and discuss our favourite Hunters with you, I have other commitments, and must be on my way." She held up a hand as there was a chorus of disappointment. "But I have been so happy to see you all in action. Enjoy the closing mixer, take the time to congratulate our doily winners, and write on!"
To another round of applause, Ms Fearguson waved, beamed dotingly, and left.
"So, do we follow him?" asked Dean, taking back RJ (who took advantage of the distracting crowd noise to grab at his parent's chest with a triumphant cry of 'Titi!'. "Ow! Hey, what have I told you about mauling the mammary merchandise?"
"If we can figure out how to defuse the doilies before the mixer ends tonight, maybe we can disable the ones given to those other women," Sam theorised, "Then we can contain ours, and see what they do." He paused. "And try to work out why. What is Crowley getting out of this?"
"The fun of watching people who like us tear each other to pieces?" Dean suggested. "He is a demon, after all, and demons are evil assholes."
"That's ridiculously passive-aggressive, even for Crowley," said Sam.
"Well, we know what the doilies will do," Dean pointed out, "Make us decide to go kill one of the other participants. Possibly each other."
"I think our usual wardings will stop it happening to us," Sam mused, "But if we can confront Crowley with the evidence, and a spell in progress, and show him that we've worked out his plan, then he won't have any excuse. It's about plugging all possible loopholes."
"You woulda made a great lawyer," Dean grunted, checking his watch as they headed for the car. "So, back to the room, defuse the doilies, save the ladies, work out the evil plan, kick the King of Hell's ass. Just another day in the job, really."
"I guess," Sam nodded.
"And while you do research into diabolical doilies, I can work on my story some more!" enthused Dean.
"Huh?" Sam's head snapped up. "Dean, you've got the doily, okay? You don't need to write any more of that story!"
"But the server is staying open," Dean said, "And my fans are pestering me to finish it!"
"Your… fans?" echoed Sam.
"Yeah, my reviewers!" Dean smiled sunnily. "They love my writing! So, unless you got something you need me to chase up for you, I'll get on with my story."
Sam gave his brother a sour look. "I really don't know why anybody would feel the need to cast a spell to try to motivate me to want to murder you," he growled, "All they have to do is wait for you to open your mouth within range of my hearing."
"Shut up, bitch. They're gonna love the next bit. I'm gonna swing from the rigging, even if you won't."
"Well, your domestic habits are sometimes positively simian, so at least for you it'll be authentic."
"Just for that, I think I'll drop you overboard, and then you'll be all wet and dripping, and your shirt can cling to you and reveal the contours of the physique below it…"
"If I'd had any idea that contact with oestrogen would affect your brain this way, I never would've agreed to go genderbending as a disguise."
"Hey, at least you'll have your pants on."
"Yeah, great."
"For now."
"Jerk."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
"We gotta get more of this stuff digitised," Sam grumbled as he consulted a scan of one of Bobby's books. "If we could get more of the material online, we could consult it wherever we are – if we could set up a database, a network, other Hunters could use it, too. We could set up a couple of bots to trawl it, compile metadata, make it searchable…"
"I got no idea what you're talkin' about," interrupted Dean, "But I will warn you about givin' computers too much information – it starts with networks and digitising stuff, then you say, yeah, let's have some bots, that's cool, next thing you know, it's nuclear bombs and naked dudes from the future."
"Not that sort of bot, bro," Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It would just be so much more efficient if we could get organised, so Hunters don't continually have to re-invent the wheel."
"Good luck with that," Dean snorted in amusement. "Gettin' Hunters organised? Be like herding cats."
"Actually, the phrase that popped into my mind was 'Like herding angry hungry rabid hyenas whilst wearing a waistcoat made of steak'," replied Sam. "Even just collating and organising lore info online would be a huge step forward."
"Each time you try to get Bobby's library 'organised', he pitches a fit," Dean reminded his brother. "He likes it just how it is. He won't even let that monkey dude, his friend who visits from another reality, organise his books, and it takes serious balls to face down an OCD monkey who's screamin' at you because he wants to catalogue your books accordin' to some system other than pilin' them up in a way such that they don't fall over too often."
"The Librarian is an ape, Dean, not a monkey," Sam ground out in a long-suffering tone. "Orang-utans are apes."
"Well, if three hundred pounds of hairy ape can't convince Bobby to get organised, two hundred or so of hairy emo sure won't," Dean suggested.
Muttering dire imprecations against insufferable big brothers, Sam stared hard at the doilies, and compared each one to the page he had open on the screen. The pieces of intricate crochet were laid out in the centre of a large piece of paper, surrounded with carefully drawn sigils and charms of warding. "I think this is using a similar strategy to the one you inadvertently used to summon a Hellhound all those years ago," he surmised, with a small smile at the remembrance of Jimi Senior, the Hellhound who had answered Dean's unwitting call and become a Hunter's dog.
"Jimi wasn't interested in motivatin' me to go kill people I never met before, though," Dean pointed out. "Once he found me, all he really seemed to be interested in motivatin' me to do was drop bacon, or buy him packs of hot wings."
"I know," Sam huffed in frustration. "And I can't work out how the hell it's been adapted to do that!" He consulted his laptop again. "There's no curses that I can detect, they're not possessed, there aren't any malevolent entities lurking and waiting to jump out and inspire murder…"
"Uh, whatever it's meant to be doin," Dean cut into his thoughts, "I think it's doin' it."
"Huh?" Sam looked up at the familiar growling noise: both the dogs were staring hard up at the table, and growling, eyes pulsing with ember-red light. Baring his own teeth, Dean picked up RJ, and put him on the bed furthest from the table – both dogs broke away from growling at the doilies to station themselves by the boy, 'Lennie' on the bed with him and 'Lara' on the floor, watchful. "Oh, crap."
He looked to the doilies again. The beads worked into the design of one were glowing very faintly with a pulsing red light, and the edges of another closest to a sigil of protection began to smoulder.
"It's sure triggered the noses for evil shit," noted Dean grimly, as Lara yawned, briefly showing a mouthful of jagged hell-teeth as if warning the universe in general not to threaten the child in 'her' charge.
Sam looked at his brother. "Do you feel any more homicidal than usual? I realise that the signal to noise ratio might be pretty low, given your usual background homicidal tendencies…"
"Bitch. But nope," Dean shrugged easily. "Not unless something comes through that door and threatens RJ, then I'll tear its fucking head off without a second thought."
"Okay, that's just baseline Dean, then." He consulted his own thoughts and emotions as honestly as he could. "And I don't feel like strangling you any more than figuratively for your terrible writing," he ventured.
"The wardings are holding it, then," Dean noted, as another sigil began to smoulder. "Can you, uh," he waved a hand uncertainly, "Now you can see 'em in action, can you figure out what they're actually doing?"
"I don't know," Sam replied tensely, beginning to pace as he thought out loud. "The Hellhound-summoning thing, it acted as a kind of beacon, I think, something for Jimi Senior to home in on."
"What, like, diabolical GPS?" posed Dean, with a glace over to RJ and the dogs. "So, could this not be carrying the spell, but be, like, directions for where to send a spell? Cast one remotely, on whoever has the doily?"
"That's a possibility," Sam agreed, still pacing. "Like a locator. Jimi found you, because you were the right person, with the right qualities, with the right design, and that let him home in on you. But Jimi had a mind to use, an intelligence – doggy intelligence, granted, and sometimes, not terribly intelligent intelligence, but he had the innate awareness to answer a summons. Could a spell do that? A spell doesn't have a brain, it doesn't have a mind, it doesn't…" his voice trailed off, and he let out a groan of distress.
"What?" Dean was at his brother's side instantly. "Sam, what?"
"Oh, fuck," Sam sank into a chair, and dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, fuck, have I really been that stupid?" He started tapping frantically at his computer. "Oh, fuck, have I really screwed the pooch that hard?"
"Talk to me," Dean snapped, then sat down to wait – Sam, or more accurately Sam's brain, was in The Zone, and he'd just have be patient until it had compiled the data it had just received.
"This man's trash is that man's treasure," Sam muttered to himself, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Something doesn't have to be good to be popular…. You said the server for this conference was gonna stay online for a few days?"
"Yeah, for a week or two," Dean answered, "So people can finish up stories they've been workin' on, read some of what they missed during the meeting, generally keep the fanfic love happening."
Sam found his way to the site from the previous fanfic conference. "It's not crap writing," he hissed, "It's writing that I thought was crap, but not everybody agrees with me. The women who were murdered following the last one, I thought their writing was atrocious, but… " he sat back and let out a breath. "This one won the prize for Most Popular Story In Which The Winchesters Retire From Hunting And Set Up House In The Suburbs And Sam Goes Back To Study And Dean Runs A Car Restoration Workshop."
Dean's eyes widened. "That's a thing?"
"It was at that conference. And this one, she was awarded Most Popular AU Where Dean And Ronnie Get Married And Have Kids And She Dies Tragically Saving The Kids And Dean Goes On To Avenge Her And They Grow Up To Be Awesome Hunters."
Dean let out a yip of horror. "Now, that had to be crap writing!"
"It was," Sam snapped tersely, "It was terrible. At least, according to me. But it was popular. And…"
A new link brought up an image of two women, beaming at the camera, not at all self-conscious about looking silly with doilies on their heads.
Sam turned an anguished face to his brother. "I've had this completely wrong from the start," he practically wailed, "Those doilies aren't carrying spells to inspire homicide; they're acting as beacons. Homing devices. They're not turning people into murderers – they're being used to designate victims."
OF COURSE Bobby knows The Librarian from the Discworld. They're both Persons Of Knowledge, and they network. (If I drop off the radar for a few days it could be because I'm reading Sir Pterry's last book, 'The Shepherd's Crown'. And so after this one, there will be no more Discworld stories; WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!)
It had to be Crowley, didn't it? What a naughty naughty demon he is. What is he up to? Help Alfie-Con the plot bunny to speed to the finish line by feeding him reviews!