It feels good to be on the trail of Mary's killer again, Sam thinks, as Dean pulls the Impala up to a run-down old bar with a faded sign reading, "Lloyd's." It's situated at the intersection of two dirt roads just outside of Rosedale, Mississippi, and seems like exactly the kind of place a crossroads demon would go prowling. Sam hopes so, anyway, and he hopes that he and Dean can find the next person on the collection list before the hellhounds do. He'd love to be able to cheat this demon out of a few souls, especially since a demon has just cheated him out of a girlfriend. Not to mention a mother. And the rest of his family.
"You think this is where the first summoning went down?" Dean asks, looking back at the crossroads.
"Wouldn't be surprised," says Sam. "Look, aren't those yarrow flowers growing at the side of the road? It'd be perfect for a summoning."
Dean makes a small noise of agreement and gets out of the car, but instead of making for the bar he walks around the Impala to the trunk, from which he takes a small shovel. Then he paces out to the middle of the crossroads. Sam follows curiously.
"That seems about dead center," says Dean, and plunges his shovel into the dirt.
"You think the spell box might still be there?" Sam asks.
"Maybe," says Dean. "And if it is, we'll find out who did the original summoning, cause you have to put your name and picture into those boxes."
"Shouldn't that be one of the people who's already died?" asks Sam. "That architect, wasn't he the first one? So he should have made the first deal."
"Maybe," says Dean. "I just want to see."
Sam shrugs, watching Dean lift a few shovelfuls of dirt from the road. He doesn't see why it should matter who the original summoner was, but he's too glad to be on the case again to argue.
"Yahtzee," mutters Dean, as his shovel clunks against something hard.
Sam helps widen the hole so that they can retrieve the box. It's metal, and the latch is rusted shut, so it takes a few minutes and a few whacks with the shovel to break it open. Finally, though, the contents lie strewn all over the ground. Sam scrabbles amongst the dried herbs and small animal bones until he finds a small photograph, curled and yellowed with age. On the back is written the name George Darrow.
"It's not the architect," he says in surprise, staring down at the young face in the picture for a moment before handing it to Dean. Dean examines it briefly, his expression inscrutable, and then tucks it into his pocket.
"Well," he says, gesturing towards the bar, "let's see if Mr. Darrow ever patronizes this fine establishment."
They dump the spell box back into the hole, fill it in, and walk back over to Lloyd's, brushing the dirt from their clothes as they go.
The bar is dark inside, and smells like stale beer, sweat, and vomit. At first Sam thinks the whole place is empty, but then his eyes adjust to the dimness, and he spots a man sitting hunched on a stool at the far end of the bar. He doesn't appear to notice Sam and Dean as they approach, focused on pouring himself a shot of scotch from the bottle on the counter in front of him, but when they sit down on either side of him he growls, "Who the hell are you?"
In answer, Dean holds out the aged photograph from the spell box. "Look familiar?"
The man squints reluctantly at the photograph, then snorts. "Yeah. Me when I was too young and stupid to know how good I had it."
"You're George Darrow?" says Sam, unable to conceal his surprise. He can see now the resemblance between the tired, careworn old drunk sitting before them and the smooth-faced man in the picture, but he would never have guessed them to be the same person if he hadn't been told otherwise.
"Yep," the man says heavily, and knocks back his shot of scotch.
"Seen any hellhounds yet?" asks Dean.
Darrow glares at him with bloodshot eyes. "Of course. Why do you think I'm in here giving myself alcohol poisoning? Better way to go than ripped apart by one of those things."
"You know how to keep them away?" Sam asks. It would certainly explain why Darrow wasn't the first victim.
"You think anyone who knows how to summon a crossroads demon ain't gonna know about goofer dust?" says Darrow irritably. With one hand, he reaches into a pocket, pulls out a small glass jar full of gray powder, and shakes it at them. With the other hand, he pours himself another shot.
"Well, we can help you get rid of the demon, not just the hounds," says Sam. "Please," he adds, because Darrow is shaking his head, "please let us help. Just hear us out."
"No point," grunts Darrow. "I'm damned either way for lettin' that thing loose on this town. You go and find Evan Hudson—help him. He don't deserve what's comin' to him."
"How do you figure that?" asks Dean. There's a hard glint in his eyes that Sam doesn't understand. This is someone they're supposed to be saving; why does Dean have to be so antagonistic?
"Well," says Darrow, after a sip of scotch, "there's deals and there's deals, right? I made my deal—well, it wasn't for nobody's good but my own. But Hudson—he made it for his wife. So you go find him and help him."
Dean seems ready to take Darrow at his word; he gives a short nod and stands up. Sam, however, hesitates. Dean might be willing to leave the man to his fate, but Sam isn't about to give up so easily.
"It doesn't have to be like this," he tells Darrow. "We can help you. We can save you."
Darrow just shakes his head, and Dean says, "He doesn't want saving, Sam. Come on." And he drags Sam out of the bar.
"So we're just going to leave him to die?" Sam demands as soon as they're outside. The thought of letting the crossroads demon collect Darrow's soul without a fight makes him clench his fists until his joints ache.
"It was his choice," shrugs Dean. "Not much we were gonna do to change his mind."
"That's not the point," Sam says between his teeth.
"No," agrees Dean, unlocking the Impala and climbing in, "the point is finding the damn demon and seeing if it knows anything about Mom. I'm not gonna jeopardize that wasting time trying to sweet-talk some old geezer who doesn't even want our help."
Sam shakes his head in disbelief. How long has Dean been avoiding anything to do with hunting Mom's killer, and now he's lecturing Sam about getting sidetracked? Still, he supposes Dean is right. They need to move quickly if they're going to get to the last victim before the demon does.
"Let's find Evan Hudson, then," he says grudgingly, sliding into the passenger seat.
*S*P*N*
It turns out Evan Hudson is an antiques dealer who lives in a large, old-fashioned house in the town proper. At first, there's no response to Dean's knock, but then, just as Dean is preparing to pick the lock instead, the door opens to reveal a distracted-looking middle aged man.
"Yes?" he says, his eyes flickering between Sam and Dean, and then darting over their shoulders, as though checking for other visitors.
"Evan Hudson?" asks Sam. "We're here to help you."
The color drains from Hudson's face as he stares at Sam.
"H—help?" he croaks. "What do you—"
"We know all about the genius deal you made," says Dean, pushing past Hudson into the house.
"What? How?" asks Hudson, looking as though he would like to object to Dean's rude entrance, but not quite daring. Sam doesn't blame him; that hard glint is back in Dean's eyes, and he makes no effort to conceal the sawed-off shotgun in his hand. Sam shuts the door behind them and drops a bag of supplies on the floor just inside.
"Where's your wife?" Dean asks, ignoring Hudson's question.
"I...I sent her and the kids out for a couple of days to visit her parents. I didn't want them to be around when…." Hudson breaks off and swallows hard. "I did it to save her, you know," he whispers. "She was dying. I made the deal for her."
"You sure about that?" says Dean. Sam tries to shoot him a warning look, but he's too focused on Hudson to notice.
A faint shade of anger seems to pierce through Hudson's bewilderment; he frowns. "What do you mean by that?"
"See, I think you did it for you," says Dean. His tone is harsh, angry. "I mean, did you ever think about how your family's gonna feel, after you're gone?"
Hudson opens his mouth, but says nothing. Dean shakes his head contemptuously.
"Nope. You didn't think about it, cause you won't have to. But your family, they'll have to think about it. And they'll have to deal with it for a lot longer than ten years."
"I made the deal so that they'll have longer than ten years," says Hudson.
Dean shakes his head again, but this time he looks more pained than angry. Sam bites his lip. How could he have forgotten that Dean thinks Mary made a deal, just like Hudson and the rest of the demon's victims? That must be what has him so on edge, his whole body rigid. Sam wants to reach out to where Dean is standing, place a hand on his shoulder and soothe away that tension, reassure him—because he's certain that Dean's suffering in that regard is needless.
"You think I wanna die?" Hudson bursts out, before Sam can act on this impulse. "I'm going to be dragged to hell!"
"Not if we can help it," Sam cuts in before Dean can make the situation any worse. "Look, we can protect you from the hellhounds, and the demon, if you'll let us."
As he says it, he registers a flicker of movement outside one of the tall windows on either side of the front door.
"Hellhounds?" repeats Hudson, and his voice his suddenly high and terrified.
"We have some defenses we can use against them," says Sam, but Hudson isn't paying attention. He's staring out of the window through which Sam noticed movement.
"Is that a hellhound?" says Hudson, pointing with a shaking finger.
Sam whirls instinctively to look, but he only gets the briefest glimpse before Dean is yanking him back, pushing him farther into the house, covering the door with his salt-loaded sawed-off. That one glimpse is enough, however, for Sam to be certain he never wants to lay eyes on a hellhound again. It looks like a dog only in the very loosest sense of the word; most of it seems to be made up of heavy, slavering jaws, long, jagged teeth, and a huge, wet, quivering nose. The rest of it consists entirely of muscular legs and sharp claws.
Worst of all, though, is the jolt of recognition that hits Sam when he sees it.
"Go!" Dean yells at him, kicking their bag of supplies away from the door and across the floor to Sam.
Sam grabs up the bag with one hand, and with the other hustles Hudson, who is staring, apparently frozen with horror, into the first open doorway he sees. From the entryway comes the crack of a gunshot and crash of glass shattering, and then Dean comes barrelling after them, slamming the door shut with a bang almost as loud as the gunshot.
They're in what appears to be a study; Hudson is crouched behind a large leather-top desk, rocking backward and forward. Sam seizes a jar of goofer dust out of their bag and begins shaking it out in a circle around him.
"Hurry up," says Dean, taking a second jar of goofer dust from the bag and beginning to lay down a line at the door. "That hellhound's probably still out there, I don't know if I got a hit or not. We need this room secure."
Sam nods, closing the circle around Hudson, and moving on to the room's large mullioned windows.
Hudson is peeking over the top of his desk, watching. "This is going to stop the hellhound?" he asks doubtfully.
"Oh, it'll stop," says Dean, smiling darkly.
*S*P*N*
Dean grins even wider at the terrified look Hudson gives him. He and Sam formed a plan to stop the hellhound on the way over to Hudson's house, and though it doesn't really involve goofer dust, Dean can't wait to carry it out on this douche.
There's a loud scraping from outside, which sounds horribly like claws against wood. Hudson lets out a little moan, his hands over his head. Dean glances around; before anything else, they need to secure the room. He closes the protection line over the door, and moves to help Sam with the windows. He can see Sam shooting furtive glances at him while they work, but doesn't pay much attention until he speaks in a low voice.
"You still think Mom made one of these crossroads deals, huh?"
"Dude, do we really have to talk about this now?" says Dean, shaking his jar far too forcefully and dumping a small mound of goofer dust onto the windowsill.
"It's just, you know she couldn't have, right?" Sam persists, pausing in his own shaking to look at Dean.
Dean's eyes flick down to the spot where Mary's little bronze amulet customarily rests on Sam's chest. "We'll see what the demon has to say about that," he says, finishing off the protection line.
At that moment, a renewed flurry of scratching and thumping sounds from outside. Sam and Hudson's eyes both track some movement Dean can't see, flickering from window to window. Then, abruptly, the noise stops. Sam lets out a breath.
"I think it's gone for now," he says. "We'd better move, find a good spot."
Dean walks over to the study's second door, near where Hudson is still crouching in his circle of goofer dust behind the desk. He opens it, careful not to disturb the protection line across it, and peers out into the hallway. A few feet beyond the door, a second hallway transects the first.
"Here we go," says Dean. "Works for me. It's a crossroads."
Sam looks doubtful, but he gets a piece of chalk from their bag and sets about drawing the pentagram and squiggly symbols of a devil's trap on the hardwood floor at the junction of the two hallways. Dean stands guard with the sawed-off while he works, leaning in the doorway of the study so that he can keep an eye on Hudson as well, but there are no signs of the hellhound returning.
"What is he doing out there?" Hudson demands, craning his neck to see around Dean, who doesn't bother to answer.
"Done," Sam calls from the hallway, standing up and stepping away from the pentagram, which now sits inside a perfect circle of goofer dust.
"All right," says Dean, stepping over to Hudson and pulling him out of his crouch, ignoring his terrified whimper. As far as Dean is concerned, a little primal fear is a fair price to pay for getting out of this alive. Plus, it leaves Hudson wide open for possession, which is essential to the plan. "Show time."
"W-what's happening?" Hudson asks nervously as Dean drags him out into the hallway. His mouth falls open when he sees the pentagram.
"In you get," says Dean, steering him into the middle of the circle, making sure none of the lines are smeared. "Relax. This is all part of the plan."
"Plan?" repeats Hudson in a near squeak.
"Yeah, the plan to make sure your sorry ass will still be here for your family to come home to tomorrow," says Dean irritably. "Now shut up."
Hudson falls silent, but speaks up again as Sam places a small box in the center of the circle at his feet. "Are you sure you guys know what you're doing?" he asks.
"Well, I've never summoned a crossroads demon before," Dean replies, relishing the way Hudson's eyes widen in horror, "but I think we've got the general idea."
A strong breeze suddenly runs through the hallway, bringing with it a flurry of loose papers from the study and a distinct whiff of sulphur. The circle of goofer dust thins considerably, but neither Sam nor Dean moves to refresh it. There's no need at this point.
"'The general idea?'" The voice that says this issues from Hudson's mouth, but it's not the shaky, nervous tone they've been hearing from him since they arrived at his door. He stands straight in the middle of the circle, no longer hunched and shivering, and his eyes gleam red as they take in the hallway and the box on the floor. "This is the worst summoning I've ever seen." The demon shifts Hudson's shoulders in a gesture of discomfort. "You could have at least provided a nicer meat suit. The ones I usually inhabit are much more...appealing."
"Oh, I think this meat suit works just fine," says Dean. "That hellhound of yours will certainly find it appealing."
Right on cue, there's a crash from inside the study. There's nothing there that Dean can see, but Sam, staring with wide eyes, seizes his wrist and pulls him back against the wall, presumably out of the path of the hellhound. Dean imagines he can hear the creature's panting breath as it advances into the hallway. If everything is going according to plan, it's moving directly towards the demon wearing Hudson's body.
The plan must be working, because the demon tries to back away, only to find itself locked in place inside the devil's trap.
"What the—?" it mutters, and then it notices Sam's handiwork with the chalk. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Dean catches Sam's eye and grins, punching his shoulder lightly. Sam smiles back, triumphant. Then he looks past Dean to where the demon is now cowering in the center of the devil's trap.
"Looks to me like that body's marked as puppy chow whether or not there's a demon inside," Sam says. "And the goofer dust is almost gone. One little draft and we won't have to bother with an exorcism."
"So you better call off your mutt, you son of a bitch," Dean finishes succinctly.
The demon twists Hudson's features into such a grotesque expression that it looks momentarily inhuman. But it seems to realize that it has no choice but to concede the point, because it turns toward where the hellhound must be waiting and gives a sharp whistle.
"Juliet!" it calls, in a voice that is clearly meant to be soothing, but is thick with anger and fear. "Stand down, girl."
Dean swears he hears a faint whine and a scuffle of claws on the floor.
"Juliet," says the demon, now speaking in the sort of singsong tone one might use with a favorite pet. It makes Dean's skin crawl. Sam is staring at the spot where the hellhound must be, looking rather repulsed. "Down," the demon commands, and there is another rush of wind, which rustles the papers scattered across the floor, and then silence.
"Well, boys," says the demon, fixing them with its hungry red eyes. "You've got me here. Might as well cut the small talk and get down to business. What else can I do for you?"
"You can tell us what happened to our mom," says Sam forcefully.
"I think you already know that," says the demon, with a sly grin.
Dean sees Sam's fists clench. "So she did make a deal?" he asks quickly. "What for?"
"Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I don't do things for free, you know. I've gotta make my living just like everybody."
"How's this for a living?" says Dean, leveling his sawed-off at the demon's head. "You tell us what we want to know and we won't fill you full of rock salt."
"Please," scoffs the demon. "Wouldn't want to hurt this precious vessel of mine, now, would we? He's got a family coming back to him, after all."
"We've got holy water, too," says Sam. There's an ugly edge to his voice that Dean's never heard before. He glances over at him, and his stomach jolts unpleasantly to see the look of hatred on Sam's face—a look so intense it could almost match the demon's.
"Sam, Sam, Sam," drawls the demon, leering. "Well, I can see why Azazel wanted you."
"What?" snaps Sam.
The demon chuckles. "You wanted to know about your mom's deal, right? Well, what do you think she had to trade? Besides her soul, that is."
For a moment, there's complete silence while the demon grins maliciously at the pair of them.
"Are you saying that our mom sold Sam in a goddamn demon deal?" Dean demands after a moment. The idea of her making a deal is bad enough, but this…this sends an icy, numbing chill through Dean's blood.
"If it makes you feel better, he wasn't actually born yet," laughs the demon. Dean is sorely tempted to tighten his finger on the trigger of the sawed-off, which is still aimed at its face.
Sam is shaking his head. "You're lying," he says flatly.
"Am I?" says the demon. "You were about, oh, ten years old when she died, weren't you?"
It's true, Dean thinks, with a sick feeling in his stomach, Sam had been nearing his tenth birthday that terrible night. From the look on Sam's face, Dean knows that he's counting back too, remembering the birthday he never got to celebrate. He looks stricken.
Abruptly, the ice in Dean's blood turns to fiery rage.
"But why?" Sam whispers. His voice is quiet, barely audible over the demon's cackling, but to Dean the anguish in it is as loud as a siren. "Why would she do that?"
The demon shrugs. "No idea," it says. "You'll have to ask Missouri about that one. She was the one who arranged it, not me."