Interlude VIII:
Marlowe Homestead
Laramie, Wyoming
Wednesday 23 June 2010
At the distant sound of a telephone ringing, Bobby turned off the blow-torch and flipped up the visor of the welder's mask. The smell of heated iron and salt hit his nostrils, and he took a moment to ensure his handiwork was sound before leaving the former storm shelter and heading up the stairs.
It was the house phone and not one of the false agency lines he had rerouted, and so he took his time. The only person who had this number right now was Jody, and she likely just wanted to give him an update on how things were going back at the salvage yard.
It had been more than a week since Balthazar had flown into the cabin where Bobby was holed up and announced gravely that their time together had run short.
"What the hell does that mean?" Bobby had demanded.
"Big plans in the making, old man, and you need to scarper if you don't intend to be used as bait," the blond man had said unconcernedly. When Bobby had stared at him in disbelief, he had made a shooing motion. "I mean it. Off with you. And don't go somewhere that I or anyone else you know might look for you, because that's the first place I'll tell them to look."
"You'll tell them?" Bobby had repeated, grimacing.
"Cassy thinks I need to make nice with big brother for a time, which means the summer of our love has sadly turned to autumn," Balthazar had said in mock-mourning. "I promise, it's not you, it's me."
Bobby had rolled his eyes. "And the reason for all this?"
"Plausible deniability, luv," Balthazar had answered, snapping his fingers; instantly, all of the belongings Bobby had acquired during his forced protective custody had been packed into neat piles beside the door. "You need to go somewhere elsewhere, so that when Raphael asks me where you are I can truthfully say I have no idea."
It had been on his tongue to ask more, but from the set look on the angel's face Bobby had decided that he was unlikely to get any concrete answers. "And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"
"You're not so senile as to have forgotten how to drive, are you?" Balthazar had deadpanned. "There's an automobile outside waiting for you. You'd better be gone within the hour, or I can't be held liable for what happens."
"What about Jody and Gabe's folks?" Bobby had asked.
"All taken care of," Balthazar had dismissed. "Freshly sigil-protected, and the latter are taking an extended vacation somewhere that I don't know about."
And without more than that, the angel had vanished in a flap of wings that ruffled the musty curtains. Bobby had stood blinking for about a minute trying to understand what had just happened, and then sprang into action. Dean and Sam had told them what had happened to Castiel the first time he had encountered Raphael in Chuck Shurley's home, and he didn't intend to experience that same treatment.
After briefly considering any of the hunters he knew and safe houses he had used over the years, he dismissed them all as too risky; if angels were going to be looking for him, now led by the still ambiguously motived Balthazar, it was more than likely they would try to track him through those same connections. He had needed to head somewhere that was more or less outside of the hunting world.
Which is why once he had packed his belongings and research materials in the beat up Pinto Balthazar had acquired for him, he had headed for Wyoming and the old homestead where he was now staying.
The building and surrounding property had once belonged to his wife's parents, and had been passed down to their daughter after she and Bobby were married. When Karen had died, the property had reverted to him, yet he had been so grief-stricken by her death that it had taken a solid decade before he could bring himself to deal with it. Even then, he treated the house as an after-though – a secondary storage unit in case anything ever happened to the main house at the Salvage Yard.
The Marlowe house itself had been built at the turn of the century, squatted against a steep little incline just off a narrow road. It was small, fronted by a garden long since overgrown, with stone foundations that reached deep underground and bracketed by trees and weeds. The roof was in constant need of shingling, and the outward façade was made up of broken shutter and cracked plaster. Lichen and graffiti covered the board fence around the property, along with various protective symbols and incantations that Bobby had added over the years whenever he passed by the area.
Inside, there was a good size kitchen with an old stove, scuffed chairs and a table; there were also two rooms that had been a living room and parlor respectively until Bobby filled them up with years' worth of hunting memorabilia and curios, stacking them on crumbling furniture and in dusty corners. The upstairs rooms were also filled to the brim with old books and objects he had been storing here.
By now the place looked more like home than when he had inherited, which helped ease some of the discomfort of actually having to be there. He'd spent the week setting up and repainting wards against every evil son of a bitch out there, especially angels and demons, although in Crowley's case he knew it probably wouldn't do much to keep him out.
The only real downside to the property was that it didn't have a panic room, something Bobby had been trying to rectify in the abundant spare time that he wasn't spending trying to decipher the scrolls Balthazar had left him.
The one supposedly written by the Witch of Endor was so far the most helpful in his quest to find a way to get a hold of Meg, but it was far from a done deal.
What little he could make of the scroll appeared to be a treatise on the nature of demons; Balthazar's throwaway comment about Gabriel saying demons were similar to ghosts had helped Bobby get at least some of the context of the scroll.
Apparently, certain demonic essences could be exorcised in much the same way as a ghost or spirit could. Because most demons had been human at one time, they left spiritual residue on their human remains and belongings. By destroying something with that lingering essence – clothes, bones, jewellery – it was possible that the demon could also be destroyed.
But that discovery brought with it further complications, not least of all being determining the identity of a demon and then tracking down something that had belonged to them. The solution was almost even more difficult than the task.
The telephone trilled again as he entered the kitchen, which already resembled the one back home; as he picked it up he made a mental note to have Jody send some of his books to a P.O. Box that was near enough for him to drive out and pick it up without giving her his location. She had told him a few weeks back about how she had packed up all of his belongings in the house and either brought it back to her place or set up a storage space if anything looked like it needed more protection than an alarm code could offer.
'Hell of a woman,' he thought with a shake of his head. "Yeah?"
"Hey there, honey," Jody Mills voice was oddly high and chipper. "You haven't been home in a while."
Something like a stone settled in the pit of his stomach at the out-of-character greeting, and Bobby gripped the receiver tightly to him in realization.
"What'd you do to her?"
"I swear, all those hunters been watching your house for weeks now, and this little meatsack's been wandering in and out, but no one bothered following her home and torturing your location out of her," the voice went on like its owner hadn't heard the question. "Now, does that mean your hunter buddies have morals, or are just plain stupid?"
"If you hurt her –" Bobby growled.
"Unpucker your butt, old man, cop-lady's fine. I just want to revisit the conversation we started before you pulled your disappearing act."
Realization sunk in. "Meg?"
"The one and only," Jody's voice clucked. "You are a hard man to get a hold of, you know that? Not least of all with me wearing your girlfriend here. She has some decent protections, too. Then again, if she'd been a little smarter, maybe she would have gotten something a little more permanent than such a breakable charm."
"You let her go," Bobby ordered.
"Oh, I will – I've got standards, you see, and I don't like possessing anyone older than thirty," Meg replied. "I just needed good old Jody here to get your attention – and the cute redhead and the kid that were staying here just up and took off, so I didn't have a lot of choice."
Bobby felt his teeth grind together. When he last spoke to Jody, she had told them that once Balthazar popped in to warn him of his impending defection, she had sent Gabriel's human family to stay with friends in Nebraska. He had been debating with himself about whether to have them come to stay with him for days now, balancing the imprudent idea of putting everyone on Heaven's wanted list with knowing he at least would be able to protect them better than most.
Meg's phone call made him all the more conscious of just how much danger people associated with him could be in.
"Consider my attention got," he snarled. "And if anything happens to her or them, I will find you and roast you from the inside out."
"Sounds like a party," Meg teased. "Although, I gotta say, as much fun as torturing and killing your friends would be, it'd be fleeting. And it'd completely torpedo what I'm trying to do here."
"Which is?"
"Like I said, Bobby – I just want to talk."
"Then talk."
"Not through the phones," she said coyly. "You never know who or what could be listening. I want a face to face."
"It's not gonna happen."
"Look, you can name the time and place. Set up one of those traps you're so good at if you want to stay safe," she told him, voice sounding like she was bored. "The guy holding your contract still wants me, right? So what could it hurt to hear me out before you hand me over to him?"
He frowned at her mention of the latest deal. She was right about this being an opportunity to fulfill his end of the bargain and get Crowley to return his soul. At the same time, though, he was wary – his agreement with the King of the Crossroads wouldn't have been common knowledge for the exact reason that was calling him on the phone.
"And how do I know this ain't a ploy to get me out in the open so you can take me out before I take you out?"
"Because that'd just be predictable," Meg sniffed. "I don't like predictable. It's boring."
"Excuse me if that don't exactly inspire confidence."
"Then how about you have confidence in the fact that I want the new boss gone just as much as you do – probably more," she told him.
He was about to reply that he doubted it, but on further reflection, figured it was possible she was right. She'd been around a lot longer than Bobby had. Whether he could trust her or not, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Even if he hadn't yet figured out how to kill her, he could still exorcise her back to Hell and work on the problem of Crowley later.
'Still got ten years,' he thought sourly. Out loud, he asked, "How fast can you travel?"
"There are meat-suits everywhere – it's not exactly Angel Air, but fast enough."
"Then I'll call you with coordinates in an hour," Bobby growled. "And Jody better be alive when I do."
He hung up.
After grabbing a bag with his hunting gear and enough holy water to sink a ship, he headed out on the I-80 East to the border of Wyoming and Nebraska, breaking quite a few speed laws on the way. He made it to an abandoned covered bridge he knew about with fifteen minutes to spare, and set about warding it up in preparation for the demon.
As he finished up, he hauled out one of his burner phones and dialed Jody's number. The phone rang once, and then Jody's still uncharacteristic voice chirped, "Talk to me, handsome."
"Eastbound I-80, just outside of Pine Bluffs, Wyoming," he growled. "Now get the hell outta her."
"See you in a few, baby," she promised, and he heard the phone clatter and the screaming sound of someone expelling a demon.
"Jody?" he demanded. "Jody!"
There was a fumbling, thumping noise, like a body hitting the ground, and then a tapping and clicking. Bobby waited with baited breath, before he heard harsh breathing across the line. "B-Bobby?"
Something in his gut unclenched at the sound of the weary, yet obviously in-control, Jody Mills. "You okay there, sheriff?"
In the distance he could hear tires squealing and horns blaring, but paid it no mind.
"Think I'll live," he heard her say, then cough. "My mouth tastes like sulfur and I haven't had such a bad headache since…ever."
"Demon possession'll do that," he told her gruffly. "You remember any of it?"
"Some. But…you watch your back, Bobby Singer," Jody told him firmly.
"Always do," he answered as he heard a car approach and backed into the shadows. If it was going fast enough it wouldn't notice the symbols he had painted on the bridge and would drive right by. "You and me are gonna talk about better protections later. How do you feel about tattoos?"
There was a dry chuckle. "Wouldn't be my first."
Bobby blinked, slightly caught off guard by that; there was a heavy silence on the end as well, and he coughed, a little embarrassed.
Whether either of them intended to say anymore, though, was lost, when the approaching car suddenly stopped and Bobby's instincts came back on line.
"I think that's her," he said roughly. "I'll call you later. Check your wards over."
He put away his phone and stepped out into the night, squinting at the beat-up pick-up parked several yards away from the bridge.
To his surprise, the young woman that got out of the car – sixteen years old if she was a day, he realized with dismay – gave him one contemptuous look and then marched straight into the devil's trap he had painted.
"Is this a nice enough show of good faith?" she asked, youthful voice painfully high.
"Burn through your other meat-suit?" he growled bitterly.
"Oh, you liked that one, huh?" she chuckled. "I figured I needed some kind of insurance coming out here. You try to exorcise me, I bite off her tongue and you get to watch a pretty little girl choke to death on her own blood." Her eyes flashed black. "I may be working an angle here, Bobby, but I'm not stupid."
Bobby almost commented that it would be a fair price to kill the bitch that had caused Ellen and Jo's deaths, but instead he barked, "You got three minutes before I send your rotted innards back to Hell, new meat or not. What do you want?"
"I want Hell back to the way it was," Meg told him bluntly. "The Demon Who Would Be King is destroying everything."
"What makes you think I'm not just gonna summon him down here right now and hand you over?" he hissed.
"Go ahead, sweetheart," she challenged. "I mean, you know what happens once he strips me down to my gooey center, right?" The corners of her mouth turned up. "You lose your leverage. Because both of us know he's got no intention of giving you your soul back. You're too good a pawn." She laughed. "I mean, the Winchester's surrogate daddy? What a way to keep them in line!"
"Maybe," Bobby admitted gruffly, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. "But that'll only last ten years."
Meg sniggered. "I'll bet he has a clause in there that lets him change the terms any time he wants. Give you more time or less, depending on what your boys are doing – even supposing they live long enough. They're such self-sacrificing little bastards, if he offered them the deal to take your place downstairs? I bet they'd both do it."
Bobby clenched his fists, knowing she was probably right.
"So, here's my issue," she went on conversationally. "My people aren't exactly the cream of the crop. They keep getting themselves killed, or worse, defecting to the bigger kid in the playground."
"Demons ain't exactly known for their loyalty," Bobby hedged.
"Not the past few generations, anyhow," she said, almost in agreement. "It's those ones I'm worried about. The new boss's merit system makes the corporate ladder look like kindergarten, and who knows when some of my boys are gonna decide to get ambitious?"
"My heart bleeds for you," Bobby deadpanned. "Still don't get why I should care."
"Because, you delightful tub of lard, I have a plan to help both of us."
"Oh, really? And if I were so inclined, how would I go about doing that?"
"Well, first of all, you help me disappear in a non-dead kind of way," Meg quipped. "You boys are so good at coming up with wards for yourself, I'm sure you're clever enough to cook up something in my size." Bobby glowered at her. "Second of all, I need to get in contact with Sammy."
Bobby narrowed his eyes and began to chant, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus –"
"Not for the reasons you think," Meg snapped loudly, trying to sound sarcastic, although he noticed spasm slightly as the words washed over her. "He's the only one that can make my idea work."
"Find someone else."
"Would if I could, hot-stuff, but he's the only one who might be able to pull the thing off," she snapped.
"And why's that?"
"Hm, let me think – the fact that he's my father's vessel wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it?" the demon drawled. "Or the fact that he was Azazel's chosen – or let's go with the fact that even before he starting choking down the demon blood he's a natural psychic. Pick one."
"I ain't handing him over so you can try to restart the Apocalypse."
"Couldn't even if I wanted to, darling, the first seal's gone bye-bye," Meg deadpanned. "Though, the time will come where my father returns. I can bide – maybe even clean things up for him while he's gone. But I need to get Crowley out to do that."
"Well, your shit outta luck, 'cause I've got no intention of helping you make pretty for Lucifer."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry – it wouldn't happen again in your lifetime," Meg snorted. "Especially considering yours has already been cut short. Even if it wasn't, there's just so much red tape for me to wade through, and ample time for you and your boys to stop it." She huffed, impatient. "The point is, I want Napoleon down there gone. And I know you do too."
"Not enough to deal with the likes of you."
"Even if it could get your soul back?" she asked coyly.
Bobby hesitated. "That's a load of crap, and you know it. Contracts can't be broken, or we'd have managed to stop Dean's from coming due and beginning this whole mess."
"You couldn't break that deal because those dicks upstairs interfered enough in things to make sure it came due," Meg retorted. "You ice our little friend, it'll negate your deal – and any contract that he's ever made, without reverting to previous terms." She smirked. "Means you get to keep those squat little legs of yours."
"You still haven't gotten me to the point where I'm supposed to trust you."
"I couldn't care less if you trust me – it's better if you don't because the first opportunity I get I'm going to be bathing in your entrails," Meg told him earnestly. "But I'm an upfront kinda gal like that – unlike the guy suffering from Short Man Syndrome who's got your soul wrapped around his naughty bits. And if that's not enough for you, maybe think about the fact that even a twisted bitch like me is a better bet than an archdemon."
That momentarily dented Bobby's composure, and he took threatening step forward. "How did you…?"
"Please. I may be on the run, but I still have sources," Meg snorted. "And from what they've said, things downstairs ain't pretty." Her expression darkened. "Those disgusting creatures destroy everything they touch, and Hell is my dust pile."
She said it with so much venom that Bobby was surprised. Balthazar had sounded just as revolted by the concept of an archdemon, and the unexpected agreement in the viewpoints of the angel and the demon almost made him want to laugh.
'The enemy of my enemy…' he thought with a bare trace of gallows humour.
"The way I hear it, he's a hell of a lot more powerful these days," Bobby said conversationally. "It might be in my best interests to not piss him off."
"I always knew you were the leash and collar type," Meg taunted.
He ignored her. "Besides, I haven't got a way to kill him."
"He's still got half a demon in him somewhere," Meg snorted. "Start from there." Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Look, every demon out there that started off human. They've left something behind. Once it's destroyed, that demon's gone. Dust in the wind, baby."
"Yours included?" he asked, keeping his face deliberately blank so that she wouldn't see his relief that her words confirmed what the scroll had said.
Her eyes gleamed. "That would be telling."
"So, you're saying if I found Crowley's bones, that's the end of him?"
"That's a big if," Meg said with a rueful smirk. "The bastard has ears everywhere. He's probably had his bones hidden away somewhere centuries ago. But that would be where our boys come in."
Bobby raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Oh, I'm not telling you anything else," she said sweetly. "A girl's gotta have some secrets, you know."
"There are a lot of things I could do to you while you're in there to make you tell me."
"Oh, I'm sure," Meg cooed, eyeing him with something like delight. "And I'm tempted to see if Dean got his imagination from you or his real daddy." Her expression turned serious. "But I'm not telling anything until I know there's a deal to be made. And I have a feeling I can hold out longer under torture than your pathetic human conscience can. " She held a hand out, inches away from the edge of the trap. "So, what's it going to be?"
A huge 'thank you' goes out to those of you who have been reading along so far and who have taken the time to review, most especially: 222Raavens, A. Crowley, aadarshinah, angelstryke, Anna, ashwingsmokefeather, Blasphemoos3, bleachcreep21, Busie, Crimson Vipera, darkburning, darkphoenix2345, DoctorKibbles, Effective Immediately, elenathehun, EricNorthmanIsMySoulMate767, Fallen Seraphim, FreshBleach, girlnineteen, heterodune_girl, Isis the Sphinx, Jade Chase, jasnrob, jazzy, jdluvva, justine82, kaddabo, kdarnell2, kai, kaliaje, Kirilin, Kiyomisa, lasersforeyes (Shane) Lenore, Leoooo, Lendiscus, Lil Kitsune-chan, LonelyElf, Melacreature, mercurybard, Michele, mushimadarame, netherlady, Omri00, pinkskyline, PopsicleOfDeath, primarycolours123, romie, ruvy91, Sadie, shajs, Shay473, sonofafluffymuffin, Tenoko1, TheGreatChickenbone, vastrea, vonquestenberg, wiccanforever and xoxo.