Chapter 3
Amy had never endured such a tense car ride in her life, and kinda wished she'd offered to just fly them all one by one to their destination. Not that Dean would have been okay leaving his Baby behind at that old shoe factory. She wondered if she and her dad could have flown the Impala together…
Not that it mattered now, as they had finally arrived. And Amy hadn't minded being squished up in the front seat between her uncles, nor did her parents seem particularly bothered by Elijah sitting in the backseat with them, but she definitely wasn't blind to the tautness in Dean's shoulders or the way he kept flicking hard looks in the rearview mirror. She didn't understand his barely veiled hostility. Yes, Elijah had killed some innocent people in the restaurant fire, but he'd explained what happened and it wasn't his fault. He was a victim, and needed their help.
Dean stopped the Impala at a park. "So where's this demon supposedly live?"
Elijah pulled a folded scrap of paper from his pocket and passed it forward. "This is the address I got off the demons. He keeps to himself and every demon knows to leave him alone."
Dean took the note. "Doesn't sound very demony."
"That's just what they told me," Elijah said tightly. "Apparently he also spends his evenings night fishing."
"Definitely doesn't sound like a demon," Dean muttered.
"We should do some recon," Castiel said.
"Me and Sam can handle that," Dean responded before anyone else could. "Less noticeable if the whole gang doesn't go."
Amy flicked a discomfited look at the backseat, but neither of her parents seemed perturbed by basically being sidelined. Amy decided to stay with them instead of asking to go with on the reconnaissance.
The backdoors opened and the three in the back exited. Amy simply gave her wings a small flap to get outside so Sam wouldn't have to let her out. Then she watched her uncles drive away, leaving the four of them in the otherwise empty park.
Elijah followed the Impala with tight lines around his eyes. "You work…closely, with the humans," he enunciated carefully.
"We're a motley crew," Ryn replied. "And a family."
"Hm."
There was a picnic table nearby, so the four of them headed over to take a seat and wait for Dean and Sam to return.
Ryn shifted on the bench slightly. "Do you- who was your sire?"
Elijah didn't respond right away. Then, "His name was Edan."
Her breath hitched.
"Did you know him?" Elijah asked.
"He was my son."
Amy watched the emotions on her mother's face, simultaneously vulnerable yet guarded. Ryn never talked about Amy's half brother, who had lived and died centuries before she had even been born. All Amy knew was that he'd existed at one point, and what his name was. And that he'd gone his own way, basically turning his back on their mother. Amy couldn't fathom it.
"I didn't know he'd had children," Ryn said in a soft voice. "Edan and I…we were estranged for a long time. Were…were you there when he was killed?"
Elijah's expression was carefully closed off. "I didn't know he had died. My father abandoned me at a young age when a vampire clan invaded our village."
Ryn reeled back like the news had been a physical blow. Amy looked to her dad for cues as to what they should do or say. His eyes held empathy, but he remained quiet, just watching. So Amy held her tongue too.
"I'm sorry," Ryn whispered. "If I'd known about you, I would have come…"
Elijah's gaze briefly flicked to Amy, then back. "Well, we all are born to our lot in life, aren't we?"
Amy nipped at her bottom lip, pained by the vast history of emotional anguish she couldn't hope to comprehend—or alleviate. "You have family now," she interjected. "You're not alone anymore. And we'll do everything we can to help you."
Her mom gave her a grateful smile that made Amy beam with pride on the inside. Elijah looked flummoxed.
"What is this artifact you're after?" Castiel asked.
Elijah shrugged. "I don't know exactly. I was only told by a witch that it was what I needed."
Castiel furrowed his brow. "Are you planning to return to the witch with it?"
Amy could guess what he was thinking, that delivering a powerful artifact to a witch was dangerous. Her parents didn't even fully trust Rowena, despite sometimes calling on her for assistance. She was what they called a dubious ally.
"We can help figure out how to use it," Amy said enthusiastically. "The Men of Letters archive has every magical artifact mentioned somewhere in its database." She gave Elijah an encouraging smile. "Once we get it, we can look it up and how to use it, and find you that cure."
Elijah stared at her like a deer caught in headlights, and Amy's heart gave a pang that he was so unused to anyone offering to help him.
"Men…of Letters?" he repeated stiltedly.
"They have the greatest collection of supernatural lore on the planet," Ryn explained. "Amy's right; it'd be safer if we research the artifact ourselves. We can go to the bunker after we finish here." Her tone softened. "I bet you haven't stopped running long enough to truly rest anywhere."
His jaw ticked. "No." He abruptly stood up. "Excuse me."
Amy blinked in confusion as he strode into a wooded section of the park.
Her mother set her elbows on the picnic table and rested her head in her hands, letting out a long exhale.
"It wasn't your fault," Castiel spoke up gently.
"I know." Ryn looked up. "I know I didn't intentionally abandon him, but maybe if I had tried harder to find Edan after he left…"
"Edan didn't want to be found." Castiel reached across the table and took her hands in his. "You were all hunted for so long."
"I wasn't captured and tortured for years."
"That doesn't mean your own life wasn't hard. Ryn, you can't blame yourself for not knowing better. We both know that."
She hung her head and whispered, "I know."
Amy bit her lip, feeling like an eavesdropper who knew enough context to follow the conversation but not really having a place in it. She wanted to do something, wanted to make it better, but she wasn't sure how. Except to do whatever they could to help Elijah now. Maybe it wouldn't make up for the horrors he'd endured—maybe there wasn't anything Ryn needed to make up for—but saving people was what their family did.
Sam peered through a thin covering of branches toward the house where their demon resided. He and Dean were staying a good distance away in a wooded area, yet close enough they got a decent look at the target—an older gentleman with graying hair and beard. Who was currently puttering around his yard pulling weeds.
Dean let out a soft snort. "Anything seem off about all this? A demon who gardens and night fishes?"
Sam shrugged. "Sure, it's not typical demon behavior. But didn't Cain keep bees? Doesn't seem that far of a stretch."
Dean grumbled something under his breath.
"What?"
"I don't trust Elijah."
Sam pressed his lips into a thin line. Yeah, that much was obvious. "Because he's a phoenix?"
Dean shot him an affronted scowl. "Because he killed seven people, Sam."
"It was an accident."
"So he says."
Sam shook his head in vexation. He wasn't going to get anywhere trying to debate it. The root of the problem was that no matter how much they'd learned differently over the years, Dean sometimes still fell into old habits of prejudice and mistrust when it came to outsiders—who more often than not happened to be those of the not-human variety.
"Don't you think we should give him the benefit of the doubt? For Ryn's sake at least?" Sam pressed. "Guy was held captive and tortured for years. Imagine if that had been her." He swallowed. "Or Amy."
Dean's eyes flashed darkly.
"I'm just sayin'," Sam went on quickly. "We shouldn't judge. And it seems like Elijah wants our help."
Dean made a disgruntled noise in his throat. "Yeah, help stealing some magical object from a demon who gardens. If this turns out to be a scam, I'm gonna say 'I told you so.'"
Sam huffed. Whatever.
He went back to watching their target, which was getting really tedious the longer the guy spent in the garden. There was also a fishing pole leaning against the wall on the front porch that they could see, confirming the whole night fishing bit. Sam might have expected that the demons lied when Elijah questioned them, but the night fishing detail seemed too specific, and unless they had a prearranged decoy agreed upon to use, there had to be something here to find.
A crow glided down from a nearby tree and landed on the fence. There was a tomato planter a few feet from it, with plump red fruit on the vine, and the bird hopped closer to it.
The man in the garden straightened and turned toward the crow. He had his back to the Winchesters, so Sam couldn't see what he was doing, though he didn't appear to be moving or shouting at the bird. Yet in the next moment, the crow started flapping and squawking frantically like it was suddenly being attacked, and it lurched into the air to fly away. The man turned back to his weed pulling.
Sam's brows rose sharply. "Okay, demon or not, that's not normal."
Dean's mouth pressed into a grim line. "Yeah. Let's go."
They headed back through the grove to where they'd left the Impala, and then drove back to the park where the others were waiting.
Cas, Ryn, and Amy were sitting at a picnic table, but there was no sign of Elijah.
Dean threw his arms out in question when he exited the car. "Where is he?"
"Taking a walk," Cas replied. "Did you find anything?"
"Well, aside from the gardening and fishing pole, there's definitely something supernatural about him," Sam answered. "Scared a bird shitless just by looking at it."
"So what's the plan?" Amy asked a tad eagerly.
"Wait for cover of nightfall," Dean said. "Hopefully tonight's one of his nights to go fishing. We'll go in, get the thing, and get out."
Amy quirked a confused look. "We're not going to kill the demon?"
Dean's jaw ticked, and Sam arched a brow at him. It was kinda what they did…
Dean shook his head. "We won't be doing anything if Elijah flew the coop. He's the only reason we're out here."
"Dean," Cas chided lightly.
"I didn't fly the coop," Elijah's voice interrupted as he emerged from behind some trees. His expression was tight and posture rigid as he slowly approached them. "So you found the demon?"
Dean shrugged. "Yeah. If he goes fishing tonight, we can go in and find the artifact. What's it look like?"
"I don't have time to fully describe it to you," Elijah said curtly. "It'll be quicker if I just look for it myself."
Sam frowned. "We agreed to help. More sets of eyes are better than one."
"Do you know how long the demon will be gone fishing?" Elijah rejoined. "If we are to do this, we'll need to kill it. If we don't and it finds out we stole from it…it will come after every last one of us until we're all dead."
"You sound pretty sure of that," Dean said, eyeing him shrewdly.
Elijah's expression hardened. "Other demons are afraid of this one for a reason."
"Why?" Sam asked. That part didn't actually make sense to him, unless this demon was like a Knight of Hell or something. But there weren't any more of those around.
"I don't know," the phoenix said somewhat snippily. "That wasn't one of my more pressing questions when I was fighting for my life."
"Alright," Ryn said, standing up before things could escalate. "Elijah's right; we don't know how much time we'll have to search the premises, and a valuable artifact could be hidden anywhere. Our best bet is to set a trap and deal with the demon if we don't find the item before he comes back."
Sam glanced between Dean and Cas. It wasn't the best plan, but they'd had worse. And between the five of them, they could take out one demon.
"Okay," he said. "Let's gear up."
It was nearing dusk when they headed back toward the demon's house, which was out among a bunch of farmland and therefore isolated. Dean parked a ways down the road and stashed the Impala behind some large shrubs. They grabbed their duffel bags full of weapons and crept their way through the grove toward the house, stopping at the tree line.
Cas squinted at the rickety structure. "It doesn't appear to be warded."
Sam nodded. One less thing to worry about, as their presence wouldn't trip any alarms.
There was a squeak of a screen door in the quiet gloaming, and the guy from the garden earlier stepped onto the porch, fishing pole in hand. Cas narrowed his eyes.
"Definitely demon," he murmured.
Sam exchanged a look with Dean. Well, the confirmation was good to have.
With fishing pole and wicker basket in hand, the demon started down the steps, the echo of a whistled tune gradually receding as he headed down the road away from them, toward the pond. Guess this was it.
"Everyone clear on the plan?" Ryn asked.
"We set up shop in the living room," Dean replied. "Wait for the demon to come home. When he does, I'll pop him with a devil's trap bullet."
"I'll finish him off with the demon blade," Sam said.
"And Ryn and I will wait at the back in case he comes in that way," Cas concluded.
"That is, unless Pyro here finds what he's looking for fast," Dean added.
Elijah's eyes narrowed. "You don't think you're prepared enough to handle one demon?"
Dean's expression remained neutral, but Sam saw the steel in his gaze.
"What about me?" Amy spoke up.
Dean turned to her. "Keep a lookout. And no hero stuff."
She rolled her eyes, but didn't argue, and stayed put as the rest of them moved in on the target.