Lilith – Supposed first demon ever created by Lucifer. Has command over hellhounds and other demons. First wife of Adam before corruption by Hell.
John slips into the room. Dean's on his own bed — finally, the boys are too old to share a bed — and Sammy's blankets are coming loose from around his chin. The skin under his nose still looks red, and there's a crust of dried blood around one nostril. The dreamweaver spins lazily above Sammy's bed, and John turns to sneak back out the door.
"Dad?"
Of all times for Sammy to wake up. Still, John turns around and almost smiles at the sight of Sammy's half-open eyes. He walks over to the bed before Sam can wake up his brother.
"Hey, kiddo." John perches on the edge of the bed. "You feeling better?"
"I guess." Sammy shrugs more of his covers off and lifts one hand to itch at his nose.
John catches Sammy's hand before it can reach his nose. Then he sees some kind of black marker doodles on Sammy's arm. Wrapping one hand around Sam's wrist, John carefully twists the arm until he has a clear view of the digits that trail down the inside of Sammy's arm, from the edge of his t-shirt down to his wrist.
"Where'd these come from?"
If Sam's been practicing on himself, John's going to have a talk with Seth about his teaching methods.
"Seth drew 'em." Sam's eyes fall closed. "T'keep away the nightmares."
John isn't surprised. Seth's edgy behavior practically screamed demon. But John still wraps his hand around Sammy's wrist so that his fingers press into Sam's pulse. It thumps steadily against his skin.
"They workin'?" John asks.
Sammy shrugs again, but John keeps holding onto his wrist.
"Kinda," Sammy says. "Had a dream, but I don't remember it."
"Sam, you have to remember." John lets go of Sammy's wrist so he can clasp his hands on either side of Sam's face. "It's important."
Sammy's eyes slide open and closed again, and his forehead puckers like thinking is too hard for him right now.
"I dunno," he groans. "There was a man."
Real helpful, right there.
"An' he had yellow eyes," Sammy says.
John's heart stops. It must because he can't feel it beating anymore, and his chest is tight. Maybe he's having a heart attack.
"Okay," John breathes. His voice won't get any louder for some reason.
Right. Shouldn't wake Dean up.
John's hands drop limply from Sammy's face to his shoulders, and he pats the boy twice.
"Good job, Sammy."
He has to go. He has to do something.
"Hey, Dad," Sammy calls just as John tries to rise from the bed. "Am I bad?"
"What?" John frowns down at Sam.
Where had that come from?
"I keep dreaming bad things, an' I'm always in them." Sammy's eyes squeeze shut. "I don't wanna be bad."
John can feel his heart again. It's not really a good feeling.
"You're not bad, Sammy," he says. He bends over and presses his hands on Sammy's shoulders, squeezing hard. "You're not."
Sam throws limp arms around his Dad and squeezes right back. John can feel the thinness of Sammy's arms through his shirt. He can't take the fragility in the hug, and he pries Sam's arms off him, pushing the boy to lay back down on the pillow.
"Go to sleep," he orders.
Sammy kind of nods; it's just enough to push his chin toward his chest, but it still looks a little funny while John's pushing him into the pillow. Sammy's eyes close quickly, though, and John stands up, checking to make sure the dreamcatcher is attached firmly to the nail above Sam's head. When he turns to leave, Dean's eyes are open and staring at him. John stops for a moment, about to tell Dean to watch out for his brother, but the words won't come. He doesn't even need to say them. He hasn't for a while. John nods once, deeply, at Dean, and leaves.
Seth sits at the kitchen table like he has a spot there engraved for himself. John marches over and sits himself down across from Seth, who slides a mug of black coffee over to him. A part of him wants to throw out the question about the symbols on Sammy's arms, but John already knows they're protecting his boy. They're not the problem here.
Seth finally looks up at John.
"There's a man in Minnesota who has some metal work for the grill. For the fan?" he says absently. "He said he'll meet me in Sioux Falls, but he doesn't want to come any closer."
"Sounds fine," John grunts.
"I should be back in an hour, maybe two."
That's not a lot of time, but it should be enough for what John has in mind. He just nods and wraps a hand around the coffee mug.
"Right." Seth pushes himself away from the table and to his feet. His hands twitch by his sides as he gathers up his gun, a large book, and that oil cloth John remembers from the arachne case, stuffing them all in a backpack. Seth slides his wallet into his back pocket and scoops a set of keys from Bobby's counter.
"I'll be back," he says needlessly.
John nods and stays where he is. He doesn't move until he hears the thrum of Seth's engine dim with the miles between him and the salvage yard. Then, John gets up, walks over to the couch, and pulls Seth's leather journal out from under his stack of books. He's just lucky Seth didn't decide to take it with him.
Flipping through the pages with his thumb, John scans each page as it passes him, looking for something he's only half-sure is going to be here. But Seth knows more about demons than any hunter John has met so far, so if the Yellow-Eyed-Knight-of-Hell demon bastard had anything to do with nightmares and nosebleeds, John's going to find it here, not in some dusty old—
Sammy Winchester
John's eyes freeze on Sammy's name, written in ink on a mostly-blank page towards the back of the journal. It's a list of names, some of which John recognizes. Sammy's name is at the bottom. Nothing after it, just his name.
Mind control? Visions?! John feels sick, and he swallows hard. What is Seth doing to Sammy? No, this can't actually be Seth's doing. Seth likes Sammy. John's been half-afraid that there's a reason that Seth's so determined to protect Sammy. He can appreciate that Seth comes from a family in the hunting business — and that Seth is apparently the only surviving member — but Seth is not allowed to use Sammy as some kind of second chance for himself. Whatever they call that— Vicarious Living. Right. Because Seth lost his family to a demon—
That's why. Seth wants to protect Sammy because he knows what they're up against. He's known about this since Joliet. Maybe before. And if he wants to protect Sammy, then why isn't he telling John everything?
John flips one page backwards in the journal and finds another list, this one with two columns. One list is a lot shorter, but John's eyes are drawn to the longer one, with names that are half-regular and half-Biblical. At the very top is written Azazel. John knows that name. He's seen it before, before all the research about hags and Mares took over the demonology texts in Bobby's office. There's a dark ink smudge beside Azazel's name, like Seth was about to check off the name or scratch it out. So, what? This is a hit list? And Seth knows about Azazel, obviously, but what is he trying to do? Use Sammy as bait?
As soon as the idea pops into John's head, it makes so much sense. Azazel is the mastermind of this whole thing; the list of kids, the nightmares. Seth hasn't wanted to tell John anything until they have both the panic room and the Colt, even though the room is pretty much finished and strong enough already to hold a demon. Seth is willing to risk Sammy just because he wants to be the one to kill the first demon on his hit list.
Screw that.
John turns a few pages in the journal until he finds the pointy symbol he had seen Seth staring at right after Sammy's vision — and God, Sammy's getting visions from a demon — and he tears the page out of the journal before throwing it back on the couch. Who cares if Seth finds it that way; John has bigger problems to worry about and not much time before Seth interferes. He stomps to Bobby's office to get the things he's going to need.
o0O0o
In the dark, John walks down the hallway of Bobby's second floor and quietly opens the door to the boys' bedroom. Peeking his head in, he sees both beds full with the covers curled around the smaller bodies of his sons. He stands in the doorway for a moment, breathing in and out and listening to the echoes of his own breath. Satisfied that Dean and Sam are sleeping, John closes the door again and moves just as quietly down the stairs.
It's taken him more than an hour to find all the ingredients he needs, which means Seth should be coming back soon. He doesn't have much time to do this, so John bypasses the entire first floor, the living room and the empty kitchen, and heads for the door in the hallway that leads to the basement staircase. He pauses at the door to the panic room long enough to lay down a line of salt before he enters the room with his arms full and leaves the door open behind him. Escape route.
John lays the items in his arms down on the unfinished floor and takes a thick black permanent marker in his hand. He pulls the crumpled page from Seth's journal out of the back waistband of his jeans and unfolds it, smoothing it out against his leg. He steps up on the stepladder he and Seth have been using for the wiring and starts drawing on the ceiling, all around the opening for the extraction fan. The devil's trap is complicated, more so even than the symbols John drew on the warehouse where he and Seth challenged that imp. But John goes back and forth, making the circle as round as he can and the lines as straight as possible where they need to be. By the time he's done with it, it's pretty much the best circle he's ever drawn, and that includes geometry class in high school.
Next is the floor. The Sigil of Saturn in John's hand must be the one to call Azazel because it's related to the scapegoat demon. Somehow. John doesn't want to know the why's and wherefore's of demons, so he just accepts it and draws the symbol with two skinny triangles overtop of each other and a straight line through them both. He lays out the six candles at the points of all the lines and traces circles around those. His Zippo from his pocket is enough to light them, although John burns the side of his forefinger on the last one. All that's left is the acacia and the oil of Abrameli, which was the hardest to find. Luckily Bobby keeps it out back for consecrations.
The ingredients, John measures with precision in the silent, sleeping house. The bulb attached to the fan is his only light, and that was just wired in yesterday. John had actually been surprised that Seth knew anything about electric work. Seth had laughed something about how his dad had been a failure with a hammer but good with a gun, like that was supposed to explain anything, including the little half-smile Seth had shot at John. Like John was supposed to get the joke.
John finishes his mixing and dusts the paste over the symbol. He looks down at the words he penciled onto Seth's journal page himself. The man can't get mad at him when he's hunting the same thing John is.
The Latin feels heavy on John's tongue as he speaks it. He's not as good at this as Sammy is.
The candles fare with white light, hotter and brighter than any candle should. John lifts a hand to his face instinctively, but he tries to keep it at his forehead, shielding his eyes instead of completely covering them. He can't afford to lose his sight. The light dies down, and John hears a snap-hiss as the bulb above him blows out and flings glass into the corners of the small room. John drops his hand immediately and blinks to clear his vision. He's still seeing white spots, like he stared at the sun too long, but he can make out a figure in the center of the room. It looks like a man, about John's age, with light hair that's cut close to his head.
Then the man blinks, and his eyes glow ghastly yellow.