Chapter 29 Heart, Faith and Steel
Cassity Farm, Shoshone, Idaho
The first car to pull in arrived early afternoon, a gleaming black Lexus four-wheel drive, had not a speck of dust on it. Dean watched an old man get out, passing the keys to Ellie as he walked past her and into the house. Pa Cassity, sans his latest wife, the lingerie model. What a shame.
Sam had printed out a short bio on each of the Cassitys, gleaned from the internet on the doings and background of the family who'd become newsworthy with their sudden ascension into the world of the rich and shameless. Noah Cassity and his many marriages, to women whose ages had been ever-decreasing, was worth a billion apparently, lived in Dallas most of the time, and sat on the board of the company that pumped his oil. Alice was the eldest of the three daughters, her mother had died in childbirth with the birth of the youngest. Cindy, twenty-nine, was the middle girl. Margot was the youngest at twenty-seven. Apparently fed up with her family, she'd been the hardest to find any information on, having moved to Paris and for the most, leading a low-profile life.
An hour later, a silver Mercedes pulled up and a woman got out, staggering slightly on four-inch heels, tight silver pants encasing long legs, a fluffy white coat skirting her hips, long blonde hair lifting in the breeze that had begun to freshen. She left the keys in the car and walked up the steps into the house, drifting a little from side to side. Middle sis, he thought. The country singer who'd shot up the charts over one spectacular year and drifted down to oblivion over the next nine. Not exactly the way a demon would do it.
A plain Ford rental pulled around the drive and parked neatly in front of the garage and he watched Little Sis get out and grab a bag from the back seat, walking around the flower beds and into the house through the kitchen door. Tall, dark-haired and slender, she looked refreshingly ordinary in jeans, a thick woollen jumper and down vest.
All present and accounted for, he thought, getting up and walking down to the barn where Sam was cleaning the saddles.
"Well?" Sam looked up, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a gleam of sweat over his face.
"All here," Dean said. "And no, from thirty yards, I didn't get much detail."
Ellie came through the door, pulling her gloves off and tucking them through her belt as she stopped in the saddle room and looked at them.
"Bad news," she said. "We have a regular firm who handle the family get-togethers here at the house and they've just called to say they'll be short a waiter," she explained, looking expectantly at them. "I'll need one of you for a couple of hours to help serve dinner and pour drinks."
Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder. "Sounds like fun, I won't wait up."
Sam looked at him sourly. "No. No, no. This has to be decided the old-fashioned way."
Dean looked at him, feeling his stomach clench slightly, glancing sideways at Ellie. "I don't think we need to go that far."
"I insist," Sam said, holding up his fist. "Or you forfeit."
Dean scowled at him and lifted his fist, supporting it with his other hand, trying to force his fingers into doing what he wanted instead of what they always did.
"You ready? One, two three," Sam said, looking down at his closed fist and Dean's open palm.
"HA!" Dean crowed. "Paper beats rock!"
Ellie looked from one to the other with raised brows. "Are you done?"
Sam nodded resignedly.
"Be at the kitchen by six," Ellie told him. "Manuel will be there and he'll explain the drill."
"Dean can handle your work as well his own till eight," she added, looking at Dean steadily and hiding a smile as his lingering expression of delight disappeared.
Sam's face brightened and he nodded. "Six. Kitchen. Got it."
The dining room was lit gently by a spreading overhead modern fitting, lighting the table with its burden of dishes and bowls and platters, and leaving the edges of the room in dimness. Cream-painted panelling covered the lower two-thirds of the room and a warm caramel paint had been used for the upper third, making the high-ceilinged room seem more intimate.
Sam followed Ellie into the room, the suit provided scratching at the back of his neck, sleeves and pant legs both a couple of inches too short. Ellie looked no more comfortable in a crisp white shirt, black skirt and heels than he felt as she set two more bottles of white into the fresh ice buckets at the end of the table. Carrying the bottle of red, Sam walked around the table, pouring into the over-sized glass goblets.
"Alice, I'm so sorry about Carl," Margot said, looking at her sister. "I mean, he was the love of your life."
"Right," Alice looked at her vaguely.
"She can do better," Noah barked out at the end of the table. "Local yokel. You come back with me, Alice, and there're a dozen men who'll be lined up for you."
Margot watched her older sister's face twitch in distaste as she looked away.
"Maybe she needs to follow in your footsteps, Pop," Cindy drawled from beside him. "Marry a child and try to have more children to fuck up." She looked at him, eyes widening. "Oops, but she can't, can she. Biological clock stopped ticking!"
"Elicia's not a child," Noah said, his eyes narrowing at her.
"Right! She's prostitute," Cindy exclaimed, waving her glass for emphasis. "Who looks like a child."
"Are you done?" Margot said coldly. "Alice is in mourning."
"Margie, have you put on weight, sweetie?" Cindy asked. "All those Paris tarts and pastries? Or is it just the lighting?"
"God, Cin, give your mouth a goddamned rest, will you?" Alice turned to her sister suddenly. "Just because you crapped all over your life, doesn't mean that you have to crap all over ours!"
"There you go, Margie, the widow has awoken," Cindy said, smiling at Alice. "I could never work out why you married that blimp, 'Licey. Especially since he was a party favour for almost the whole family."
"What?"
"Oh … you didn't know?" Cindy's smile got wider, as her words began to slur. "Margie sampled dear old Carl in … when was it, sugar?"
"Shut up, Cin."
"All of you shut up, god!" Noah snapped. "How did I raise such a nest of vipers?"
"One day at a time, Pop," Cindy snarled at him. "You didn't give a flying rat's ass about us when we –"
"Can we not do –"
"You slept with Carl?" Alice looked at Margot disbelievingly.
In servery beyond the dining room, Sam's brow creased up as he listened to the conversation behind him. "Are they always like this?"
"Only if they're together," Ellie said lightly.
"How do you work here?"
She looked up at him, smiling slightly. "I love the place. The job, the animals. And they're not often all here together. I can tune them out when they are."
Sam looked at her and picked up another bottle of the open red wine, turning back to refill the glasses at the table, trying not to hear the vicious insults that flew back and forth across the polished oak table.
He slipped out ten minutes later, seeing Dean lurking at the edge of the terrace.
"Anything?"
"No," Dean said, looking at the lighted windows of the house. "What's happening inside?"
Sam grimaced. "Last three episodes of Dallas."
"What?"
"Nothing," Sam said shortly. "They hate each other and they're not shy about letting each other know. It's brutal in there."
"So no idea on who made the deal?"
"None."
"Well, the singer's dream-come-true didn't seem to last the whole ten years, did it?" Dean said slowly. "So we can probably rule her out."
Sam nodded. "The old man and Alice are still contenders."
"What about the youngest … Margot?" Dean asked, looking around.
"I don't know," Sam admitted. "She seems the most normal of them, but so did Carl."
Dean's phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket, looking at the ID on the screen.
"Hey, Kevin, what's up?"
"Hey, Dean … good news," Kevin said, his voice jittery over the speaker. "Ah … I think. Kind of."
"Don't oversell it," Dean said acerbically.
"Sorry, I found something on the tablet, about hellhounds," Kevin said, the sound of rustling paper clear audible in the background. "This mean anything to you? The dire creatures may only be seen by the damned or through an object scorched by holy fire."
"Like holy oil?" Sam asked, looking at the phone.
"It's gotta be," Dean said. "We could use a window."
"Or glasses," Kevin suggested.
"I think we've still got some Jesus juice in the trunk," Dean said to Sam. "I'll take care of the x-ray specs. You stay here and do not let JR and the gang out of your sight, alright?"
Sam nodded. "Okay, hey Kevin –"
Dean stopped, his thumb poised over the button, waiting.
"You did great, man," Sam said loudly. "No more pep pills. Get some sleep."
"Okay. Thanks," Kevin said as Dean ended the call, looking at his brother darkly and turning away.
Sam walked back into the kitchen, looking around. The catering company were loading the dishwasher and packing up and Manuel turned around, smiling at him.
"Another Cassity dinner survived by all," he said. "Can you take off the suit, Sam?"
Sam looked down at the black suit and nodded. "Yep."
By the time he'd changed out of it and handed it back, it was past eleven. He walked into the dining room with the last bottle of red, stopping as he saw that only Cindy and Alice were still at the dining table.
"Where's Noah and Margot?" he asked, looking at them.
"Gone out," Alice said tiredly, leaning her head against her hand.
"Oh, look," Cindy slurred, squinting at the tall, narrow windows at the end of the room. "Daddy's drunk and armed. Must be Christmas."
Sam turned to see Noah and Margot walking past, wearing coats and carrying rifles.
Dammit.
He put the bottle on the table and strode out of the room, heading for the kitchen and the back door to intercept them.
They were walking up the drive when he spotted them. "Hey!"
Neither stopped or turned around and he started running.
Dean walked into the workshop and stopped, looking around in frustration. Glasses. Where the fuck was he going to find glasses? He started looking through every container on the bench, pulling out the drawers under it, tipping up and searching through the various wide-mouthed jars and boxes that were scattered and stacked over the top. C'mon, he thought frantically, check the house, you're not going to find glasses in here.
He moved to the next shelf, and pulled an old grease tin closer, his fingertips closing around smooth plastic frames. Unbelievable. He pulled out two pairs, one with heavy, black plastic frames, the other with a half-frame, and looked through them. Reading glasses, the lenses only mildly magnifying. Perfect.
The ceramic ewer was still in the trunk, wrapped several times in an old blanket and tucked into a small canvas bag. Grabbing it, he poured a little oil onto the concrete and lit it, passing the glasses through the flames slowly a couple of times. Scorched, not burned, he thought, setting the first pair aside and picking up the second.
"Where are you going?" Sam caught up to them.
"Wherever I damned well please," Noah grunted, walking on. "Wolf that took my son-in-law is a man-eater. Got to be stopped."
"We're doing this for Carl," Margot added tonelessly, matching her father's stride, her rifle held familiarly in the crook of her arm, barrel down.
"I'll come with you," Sam said desperately. No weapons, no flashlight, nothing at all that would stop a wolf, let alone a hellhound, he thought. But better than letting them go out by themselves, maybe shoot each other.
Noah stopped, turning to look at him over his shoulder. "You know anything about hunting, boy?"
"A little bit, yeah." Sam said.
Margot looked at her father and after a moment, Noah nodded, jerking his head toward Sam. She lifted her rifle, handing it to him.
"Let's do it," Noah said, turning and walking away. Sam followed them, the rifle heavy in his hand. It was a Winchester, .30-30. It would take down a wolf. Probably just piss off a hellhound. Better than bare hands, though.
Dean picked up the glasses and put them, looking around. The holy fire had changed something, he thought, looking at the landscape that was now without colour or depth, a flat image of shadow and light in shades of grey. He saw Ellie walking across the yards by the barn and backed into the workshop, putting out the small fire with his boot sole and trying not to look as if he was doing something suspicious as she came around the end of the Impala, looking at him.
"I like it," she said, walking over to him.
For a second he couldn't think what she meant, then he realised he was still wearing the glasses and he snatched them off, tucking them into a pocket. He couldn't think of a believable lie to explain them right this second.
"The whole 'Clark Kent' look," she said, stopping in front of him and tilting her head a little. "Very mysterious, very sexy."
He smiled uncomfortably. "Ellie, hey."
"Hey," she said, smiling as she walked closer.
Dean looked down at her, brows drawing together slightly when she reached out, her hand resting against his chest. She looked up at him, her gaze lingering for a second on his mouth, before lifting to meet his eyes.
"So …" she said softly, her lips curving up a little. "There's a little something here, isn't there? You want to come to my room, and … have sex?"
Staring down at her as her hands ran lightly down his chest, Dean didn't register what she'd said, his mind focussed on the almost-unrecognisable sensation her touch was generating in his nerves.
"What?"
She smiled again, this time less confidently. "I – I'm sorry, I don't usually do this," she said, her voice deepening slightly as she pressed closer to him. "I guess … I guess I'm feeling my oats tonight."
Sex. With her. Now.
He leaned back a little, looking down at her as the full import of what she'd said, what she was offering and what it meant hit him.
No strings. Just sex. Now.
Now. When he was on the job. Looking for – looking for – for hellhounds. To complete the first trial. To close the gates. Forever.
"I-I can't," he said miserably, the spiralling hum of heat rising up and outwards through his body.
He watched her eyes widen, the desire disappear from them, watched her gaze fall as she shifted back. "What?"
No. No, no, no, no. No. He closed his eyes briefly, shutting out the image of her face, the images that filled his mind. The possibilities that were still coruscating through his body, lighting him up.
"Okay," she said slowly, moving backward, her gaze flicking between the ground and his face. "Embarrassing."
"Oh, no, no, no …" he stammered as he realised what she was thinking. "I – I want to, believe me."
"No, it's okay, you don't," she said, shaking her head, her voice hardening slightly. She looked away. "I guess I'm going –"
"Ellie, um," he said quickly and she turned back to look at him. "Um … raincheck."
She looked at him and his heart skipped a beat suddenly at the sadness that had filled her eyes. "This is … one night only," she said, very softly. "Sorry."
She turned on her heel and walked away, going around the car and disappearing into the darkness.
Not as sorry as he was, he thought, watching her. Where had that sadness come from? One minute she'd been – he swallowed at the flickering memory of her standing so close that he could feel her breath on his lips – the next that had gone, and he didn't think it was entirely due to what she'd seen as a rejection. She'd looked … he frowned slightly, trying to pin down that image. She'd looked as if she lost something, a last chance at something.
Sam followed Noah and Margot into the woods, the path covered in damp, fallen leaves deadening their footfalls, the woods filled with insect song, moonlight filtering through the bare canopies of the trees, falling in shafts and columns, barely enough to see ahead.
This was such a bad idea, he thought. No backup, no plan, no fucking weapons, no magic fucking glasses. Two drunken idiots leading them deeper into the woods and one of them could have made a deal that was going to draw a hound to them out here like ants to honey.
The crack of a branch to one side of the trail was loud, at least to him. He turned sharply, scanning the darkness under the trees for anything. Frustration bit into him. He couldn't see or hear the goddamned things, wouldn't know where it was or where it was going until it attacked. He looked around for Noah and Margot and swore softly under his breath as he saw they'd gone.
Moving fast up the trail, he saw Noah ahead, the man's gun swinging toward him.
"Where's Margot?" he snapped at the old man.
"I don't know," Noah said, looking around. "I thought she was with you."
The scream was loud and close and Sam bolted up the track, hearing Noah's panting breath behind him, dropping back as he came around the curve in the trail. Margot lay on the ground, arms flailing in front of her as she screamed. Sam watched blood spurt from her throat, her body jerked and lifted and he raised the rifle, firing just above her head.
"Oh my god, Margie –" Noah moaned from behind him.
"Get back to the house," Sam snapped, looking around the empty trail.
"No, no, that's my daughter –" the old man cried, struggling to get past him.
"Back to the house, now!" Sam said, pushing him hard down the trail. Margot was dead. The hellhound was gone.
Following Noah as he stumbled and sobbed down the trail, Sam's thoughts circled endlessly. The demon signs had lasted four weeks in the area. There could be more deals, more deaths. They still had no idea of how to find who'd signed up. Alice had been bewitched into marrying someone she hadn't loved. Didn't mean it hadn't been her who'd wished for wealth. Or the man in front of him. Or even Cindy. He guessed that even a deal could turn sour if you were dumb enough to wreck it.
The house appeared, and they half-ran down the drive, Sam prodding Noah along whenever he slowed down, and looking back behind them.
Dean looked at the three people sitting on the sofas in front of him. None of them was worth the effort it would take to save them, he thought. Had a family and had torn it to shreds without a care in the world, just thrown each other away.
"Alright," he said, his voice hard. "Ten years ago, one of you met someone. Carl did too and Margot. Smooth, charming customer who told you all your dreams could come true – this ringing any bells?"
"No." Noah looked at him stubbornly. "It doesn't."
Dean looked at Cindy who shrugged. Alice's brow was furrowed.
"There was that guy …" she said slowly, turning to Cindy. "Don't you remember? In the old house?"
"Oh … yeah," Cindy said, nodding. "He was smooth." She turned to her father. "You remember, he stayed for dinner, and was in town for a few days after."
Noah's expression lightened. "The English guy?"
"Yeah," Cindy said, nodding. "Cutest accent. Margot had a crush on him."
Dean glanced at Sam, mouthing 'English' at him. Sam's eyes widened abruptly.
"This guy, do you remember his name?"
Noah looked at him. "No."
Cindy looked at Alice, who shrugged. "I thought he said his name was Fergus."
"Fergus … Crowley?" Dean asked her.
"Could've been," Alice said. "Is it important?"
"Crowley's not coming here himself, not to collect a few souls from ten years ago," Sam said to Dean in a low voice.
Dean nodded. "Just send the hound to pick them up."
"What?" Noah asked. "Look, are you going to tell us what that thing was?"
"It was a hellhound," Dean said shortly, turning to look at him. "See, when you sell your soul to a demon, they're the ones that come and rip it out of you."
"Demon?" Alice looked up at him.
"Crowley," Dean said. "Your smooth, charming dinner guest. Now, if you didn't sign, great, that freak out there won't touch you, but if you did, I need to know, and I need to know now." He looked around them. "So, hands up."
"Wait," Noah stood up, looking at him. "The English guy was a demon, and now there's a hellhound after us?"
Dean looked at him steadily.
"Are you insane?" Noah looked at his daughters.
"They're obviously insane," Cindy interjected.
"Don't play dumb," Sam said quietly to her.
"Yeah, I'm not playing," she said acidly. "I didn't sell my damned soul."
"Carl sold his soul for love," Sam said, looking at Alice. "He's gone."
"What'd Margot want so much that she got hit?" Dean looked around at them again.
"What?" Alice looked at her father in bewilderment. Cindy and Noah were looking at the floor.
The sense of time ticking by was growing stronger in Dean. "Seal them in," he said to Sam.
"Yeah." Sam nodded and picked up the bag of goofer dust from the table. "Look, I'm going to spread goofer dust across the doors, the windows. That'll keep the hellhound out. For a while."
"What does that –? How long?" Noah asked petulantly.
Dean felt his meagre store of patience running out. "Long enough for me to stab it in its throat."
"No … no way … you can't, you can't do this –"
"Yes, I can," Dean overrode him loudly, pulling out the automatic and pointing it at him. "You wanna know why? Because it's what I do, and buddy, I'm the best. See, I gut Old Yeller out there and maybe, just maybe, you walk away. I don't – you're meat." He levelled the gun at Noah. "So sit down, shut up." He watched Noah sink back down to the sofa as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. "And put these on."
Sam closed off the room, pouring the dark grey dust across the thresholds and windowsills. He 'cuffed the remaining Cassitys to the stone and metal coffee table, making sure the handcuffs were locked.
"I don't – who are you people?" Alice said, looking at him as he checked the cuff around her wrist.
"We're here to help," Sam said with a sigh as he got up.
"Like you helped Margie?" Noah asked sarcastically. Sam ignored him.
"When the hellhound gets close, you might start seeing things, hearing things. It's gonna feel like you took the brown acid – and it's trying to kill you," he said quietly. "The handcuffs are so you won't hurt yourselves."
"And when one of you starts bugging out, we'll know who's on tap to be puppy chow," Dean pointed out cheerfully, turning with the last bag of dust to fill the doorway to the hall.
Following him across the line, Sam waited until he was standing. "So, what's our play?"
"Well, you camp here, figure out who whored their soul," Dean said quietly, pulling out the second pair of glasses from his pocket and handing them to his brother. "I'm going to go scout the grounds, see if I can't gank Huckleberry Hound before he makes his next move."
He started walking along the hallway. Sam looked at the glasses in his hand for a moment, then turned and hurried to catch up.
"Wait, you're not going alone, Dean, I'm going to come with you."
"Wrong," Dean said sharply as they walked into the kitchen.
"Ah, they're on lock down and you need backup," Sam said as Dean stopped.
"No, I don't," Dean said.
"Yes, you do."
"No, I need you to be safe, Sam, okay?" Dean said, looking at him. "That's what I need."
"What? What am I – when are we ever safe?" Sam countered incredulously.
Dean sucked in a breath. "This is different."
"How?"
"Because of the three trials crap," Dean said resignedly, a smile stretching his mouth that held no humour at all. "God's little obstacle course."
Sam frowned at him, not sure where his brother was going.
"We've been down roads like this before, man," Dean said. "We both know where this ends. One of us dies. Or worse," he amended.
"So what? You just up and decided it's gonna be you?" Sam looked at him, understanding hitting him like a ton of bricks. "Look at us, we're still both standing here."
"I'm a grunt, Sam," Dean said simply. "You're not. And you told me yourself, that you see a way out, you see a light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel. I don't."
Sam looked at him, unable to argue with that, not knowing why.
"I'm going to tell you what I do know," Dean continued, the smile in his eyes filled with pain and a raw, desperate longing. "I'm gonna die with a gun in my hand, 'cause that's what I have waiting for me, and that's all I have waiting for me."
Dean stared at him, jaw clenching as his chest constricted. "I want you to get out. I want you to have a life, become a scholar, whatever … you, with a wife and kids and grandkids, living till you're fat and bald and chugging Viagra – that is my perfect ending."
"It's not mine," Sam said tightly. "Not by a fucking long way."
"Too bad."
"You've done this to me before, Dean." Sam looked at him. "You remember how well that worked out?"
"You know what you're doing now, Sam," Dean countered, his face cold and drawn. "This is the only ending that I'm going to get. So I'm going do these trials, I'm gonna to do them alone. End of story."
"No. It's not," Sam bit out.
"You're staying here, I'm going out there, if land-shark comes knocking, you call me," Dean said coldly. "If you try to follow me, I'm going to put a bullet in your damned leg."
Sam watched him turn away and walk to the door, closing it behind him as he stepped outside. He would, Sam knew. He was wound up so tightly over this, he'd do it without thinking, just to keep his brother out of the way.
He looked back through the kitchen to the Cassitys, chewing on his lip as he tried to decide what to do. Someone had made a deal for the oil – Noah? Alice? Who?
Walking back to the living room, he heard them before he got there.
"Why the hell would you think that?!" Noah growled at Cindy.
"Because you're a walking corpse and you're married to a centrefold!" she spat at him. "I did the math!"
"Well, do it again. She likes money and I'm rich," Noah snapped. "And you sing like crap, so explain the music career?"
"Hello? Autotune!?" Cindy snapped back at him.
"Alright! That's enough." Sam walked in, his expression sour as he looked at them.
"I don't know why you even think one of us made a deal?" Noah said.
"Because you struck oil where there was no oil," Sam said exasperatedly. "That didn't seem weird to you?"
Noah looked at the floor. Alice turned to look at him.
"Margie …" she said softly. Sam looked around at her. "Margie used to say that, if we were rich, we'd all be happy."
"Right," Noah said, rolling his eyes. "We're the damned Ingalls!"
Margot, Sam thought, looking at them absently. Then it was over. The last hellhound had come for her.
Dean put the glasses on as he walked across from the house. The fields and buildings sharpened and faded to the chiaroscuro of black and white and grey instantly. The wind was picking up, rustling the bare branches of the deciduous trees, hissing in the pines, a steady soft noise. Over it, he heard music, and he turned to look at the horse barn, seeing a light coming from the cracks between the closed doors.
He walked across the asphalt, looking around. He'd forgotten about Ellie. The music sounded as if it was coming from her quarters. He pushed the sliding door open and took off the glasses, tucking them back into his pocket as he shut the door behind him.
The song was much louder here, and he saw the light under her door. He tried the handle, the door swinging open, the music filling the room. Ellie stood, swaying slowly, a bottle of beer dangling from one hand, her back to him. She was wearing a tight coffee-coloured camisole and her jeans and he walked behind her to turn off the stereo.
She turned around as silence fell in the room, her eyes widening a little as she saw him standing there.
"Just in time," she said, smiling.
"Yeah," he said distractedly, walking toward her. She looked a little worse for the beer and he didn't want to worry about her with the hound still prowling. "Are you okay?"
"I'm good," she said, closing her eyes and stepping closer to him, her hands sliding up the front of his coat to curl into the lapels and pull him down. "And I bet you're great."
Dean felt her lips brush over his and he closed his eyes, heat fluxing through him like an electric shock, kissing her back before he knew what he was doing, wanting to give in to that feeling so badly he could feel himself trembling.
Bad timing. The worst timing. The thoughts broke through and he straightened up slightly.
She looked up at him through half-closed eyes. "Uh … yeah, great."
"Okay," he said, looking up, gathering what remained of his thoughts back tightly and walking past her to the window. Fuck. His pulse was pounding at the base of his throat and the familiar aches throbbing through his body were screamingly reminding him of what he was turning down.
"Listen," he said, dragging in a deep breath and lifting the curtain, looking out for a second. Turning around, he met her gaze.
"Whatever happens, whatever you hear, you need to stay in here with that door locked. Sit tight, okay?" he said, walking back to her. "This is going to sound crazy, but there is something evil, out there."
"I know," she said softly.
He frowned at her. "You know?"
"It's coming for me," Ellie said, fear showing finally as she stared at him.
"What?" Dean looked at her. "You – you made a deal?"
She turned away from him, lifting a hand and rubbing her forehead gently as she walked to the end of the bed and sat down on the footboard.
"When my parents split up, my mom took a job here," she said, watching him follow her and sit on the bedframe beside her.
"It was before the Cassitys had money, but it was the best she could do," she said quietly. "It was food, and lodgings, and a wage. I grew up on the old place."
"That's how you met Crowley," Dean muttered. Crowley held all the contracts now, he knew, as Lilith had before.
"They had a dinner party, and I saw him kissing Margie afterwards," she said, her eyes a little distant with the memory. "I was afraid. I was … naïve at seventeen and I ran away and hid. He found me later that night."
She frowned a little. "He was kind, as if he understood. Kind in a way that I hadn't known before," she said. "He seemed so nice."
Dean looked away. "Best conmen always do."
"He asked, if I had one wish, what would it be?" she said, her mouth twisting as she looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "So I told him."
"And he made you sign over your soul."
"He didn't make me do anything," she contradicted him. "My mom – she had Parkinson's. The doctors had diagnosed the early stages a month before. I knew how that story would end," she said. "So I took the deal."
Dean watched her face close up a little.
"Mom is retired down in Phoenix now. She plays golf every day," she said flatly, turning to look at him.
"That was a stupid move, Ellie," Dean said.
"I did it for my mother, Dean," she said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "What would you do for your mother?"
He looked at her. That question was unanswerable. It didn't matter that he knew where it all led, what came of decisions like that. In the moment, filled with terror and pain and grief, logic and reason didn't come into it. At all.
The heart's desire comes at the cost of the soul. He'd read that somewhere a few years ago, in some book of Bobby's. The price had seemed reasonable at the time, but the truth was, it hadn't been. He'd gone and when he'd gotten back, Sam hadn't been safe at all.
Sam looked out the window, seeing the gardens and buildings, flat and two-dimensional almost in shades of grey. He caught a movement in the bushes on the other side of the drive and leaned closer to the glass, his heart pounding as the amorphous shape materialised on the lawn, stalking across the grass.
He didn't hear the rattle of the cuffs behind him as Alice slid her hand free, and ran for the door, turning back in time to see the door close behind her.
He was running, grabbing the rifle as he wrenched open the door and ran for the hall, hearing the clicking of her heels along the stone terrace.
Alice ran awkwardly across the drive to the garage. Her car was parked out in front, she had to get away, had to get help, save her father and sister, had to get out of here.
Sam's hand closed around her shoulder as she reached the car and the tension and fear and confusion of the last forty hours burst out of her.
"Oh please, just let me go, please, please," she sobbed, holding her hands up as he pressed her back against the side of the car, staring around them. He couldn't see it, no shape or movement and he gripped Alice's arm, forcing her away from the car, frogmarching her in front of him back to the house.
"No, please," Alice cried, barely able to see in front of her. "Please. Don't hurt my family –"
"I'm not," Sam growled, forcing her faster, looking around them. "I'm trying to help!"
He caught the movement against the edge of the trees and stopped, staring at the hellhound as it walked slowly toward them.
"Get in the house!" he snapped, pushing Alice ahead of him, swinging the rifle barrel up. "Get in the house."
"What –?" Alice gasped, tottering a step away.
"Go! GO!" Sam shouted, glancing at her and then back to where the hound had been. It was gone.
He watched as Alice ran back to the door, opening it and disappearing inside. Who was it here for? Who the hell else could've made a deal?
"You had to know this was coming?" Dean said, pushing those thoughts and memories and feelings aside.
"No! How?" She looked at him.
"Crowley didn't tell you about the ten year ticking clock?" he asked her disbelievingly.
"What? I knew that I died, I wasn't going to Heaven, but he never said anything about that, or … monsters."
"Douche bag," Dean muttered, dragging in a breath and letting it out tiredly. So much for the much-mentioned integrity of demon deals, he thought. "He probably didn't say jack to Carl or Margot either."
"Margie made a deal?" Ellie stared at him. "So, she's –"
"She's gone," Dean confirmed.
"Oh … god," she said, brows creasing as she thought about it. "A few years ago, Carl got drunk. He told me he'd done some kind of magic at a crossroads."
Dean rolled his eyes, nodding slightly.
"Summoned a demon? When I saw what had happened to him … I didn't know about Margie. I thought I was next."
"And you didn't run?"
"Where would I run?" she asked defensively, her gaze cutting away. "All I wanted was one last meal, some tunes, and maybe …"
Dean glanced at the bed behind them as she looked at him for a moment then dropped her gaze. Maybe …
"I don't want to die," she said to him.
His attention sharpened as she looked around, her head tilted to one side.
"You hear something?"
"A howl," she confirmed, nodding. Her head snapped around to the doorway a second later.
"What? What do you hear?" Dean said, looking around.
"Growling," she said, looking around the room. "Low. Deep."
She looked back at him and he saw her expression twist into a frightened grimace as she shifted backward, standing up and backing away from him.
"Dean? What's happening?"
"Ellie, whatever you're seeing, it's not real," he said, getting up, pulling the half-empty bag of dust from his jacket pocket. "It means the hellhound, it's close."
"Look, you need to stay inside this circle, okay?" he continued as he crouched down and poured out the last of the goofer dust into a small circle on the floor. He finished it, and glanced at her as he headed for the door. "Now."
"Dean," Ellie called as he reached the door.
He turned back, his voice low and hard. "No matter what happens, you stay inside that circle, you understand me?"
Ellie nodded.
Opening the door, he grabbed the glasses from his pocket and put them, looking around the barn aisle as he closed the door behind him. The double sliding doors to the hay store were closed and he walked to them slowly, opening one and looking around.
The creature came around the edge of the outside door, hip-high to a man, broad shoulders supporting the heavy head, long, shaggy fur almost floating around it as it slipped into translucency for a moment and solidified again.
He looked at it, his jaw clenching with the acceleration of his heart, the rush of adrenalin through his bloodstream. Desensitisation really does work, he thought distractedly, the sight of the creature no longer making him sweat with fear. It leapt across the span of the building, disappearing into the darkness behind hanging harness and a few scattered bales of hay.
"What are you waiting for?" he called out, his hand tightening hard around the bone haft of Ruby's knife. "Come and get it!"
Behind him, inside the barn, there was a rising scream and he turned back, his heart thudding, wondering if there were two after Ellie. In that moment of inattention, the hellhound launched itself at him, long claws slashing through his clothing and into the skin over his ribs, punching deeper into his side below them as the creature used the hold to lift and throw him across the width of the barn's end.
He hit the wall hard, the back of his head striking the metal frame of the building, the glasses jarred free and falling to the floor, his shoulder hitting a protruding hook and the knife dropping from his hand as the nerves were paralysed. Hitting the ground, he landed on the deep puncture wounds in his side, biting back the scream that rose up his throat as pain like a flood of acid ate through his abdomen.
Propping himself on an elbow was worse, a white bolt of fiery agony greying out his vision as his skin stretched from hip to ribcage pulling the wounds open further. Pressing hard against his side, he felt the wetness and looked down at his fingers, seeing the bright red blood on him. Dammit, other side, other side, he told himself, grinding his teeth together as he tried to roll, the strength in his body gone.
He stopped moving when he saw a swirling patch of mist, a little above the ground, across the room in front of him. It dissipated only to be replaced by another a foot or so closer to him, and then another. In the soft dirt of the store-room, he watched the low puff of dirt, displaced as a heavy pad took another step.
The glasses were out of reach, out of his reach, he thought furiously. He couldn't see the knife at all. The breaths of the hound, hell-warmed air condensing in the cold of the barn, got closer, eerily soundless although he knew the sound it would be making, a gut-churning low growl that didn't sound like any animal on earth.
Well, he thought vaguely, you're definitely going to die, but not with a fucking gun in your hand. The thought was bitter and he looked at the nearing monster, feeling a clean, bright fear run through him, devoid of the shadows and darkness that most of his fears held. Just the fear of an ordinary man, looking at his death.
The gunshot was brutally loud in the space and Dean threw himself down, almost passing out as the wounds hit the ground again, hanging on to the small patch of light in the centre of the gathering black grimly.
The second shot rang out and he sensed the hound had gone, no longer feeling the radiation of its heat over his legs, or the smell of brimstone breathing onto him.
He pulled his coat tight against his side and pressed hard, lifting himself by increments up again. Sam stood in the centre of the room, wearing the glasses, the gun held loosely as his gaze searched the floor for something. He saw the knife at the same time Dean did, dropping the gun and diving across the floor for it.
God Sam, roll, Dean thought, his throat closed and dry as he saw the dust lifting on the ground. His brother did, the knife coming up as he rolled onto his back, one hand gripping the air above him, his face screwed up as if something was touching it.
Dean watched Sam thrust the knife up hard, just behind his hand, and saw the shower of black liquid fall out of the air and cover Sam's neck and chest.
Sam wrenched the knife back, feeling it cut through flesh and bone as he angled it deeper and the black, ichorous blood of the hound splashed down over him, a stench filling his nostrils of brimstone and decomposition, with the undertone of wet dog.
Kill a hellhound and bathe in its blood, Dean thought, staring at his brother as Sam pushed the corpse off him, skin and clothing saturated, his head turning to look at him as he tried to catch his breath.
He'd done it. His little brother had passed the first trial. What the fuck did that mean, he wondered remotely, noticing the room was bulging in and out in time with his pulse. Losing blood, he thought, closing his eyes. He rolled onto his back and the impact with the ground for the third time in as many minutes overloaded his nervous system and swallowed him up in darkness.
Ellie looked up as Sam came in, Dean half-walking, half-dragged, his right arm over held over Sam's shoulder.
"Is it over?" she asked. "What happened?"
"No, it's not over, not really," Sam said tersely, going to the edge of the bed and easing Dean down onto it. "I need a first aid kit."
She nodded, stepping out of the circle and going to the cupboard under the window, pulling out a basin, several clean towels and a bulky white box. She passed the box to Sam and ran water into the basin, clearing the small table and setting it down.
"Hellhound clawed him," Sam answered her second question belatedly as he cut through Dean's shirt and peeled the cloth back from the wounds. She watched his face screw up as he saw the extend of the claw marks.
"Hot water, salt, alcohol," Sam said, his face expressionless, pushing back the shirt and coat as far as he could.
Ellie nodded and left the room, going to the feed room down the aisle.
On the bed, Dean moved restlessly and Sam laid a hand on his shoulder, holding him still, dipping a handful of gauze into the basin and wiping the blood from the tears. Shallow over the ribs, but maybe one had been cracked, he thought. Much deeper under the ribs. He rolled Dean to the right slightly, pulling his brother's tee shirt up at the back, relieved when he saw that the skin there was clean and unmarked.
Ellie filled another bowl with hot water and set it down on a chair beside Sam, pouring a cupful of salt into the water without prompting, the bottle of clear, rubbing alcohol going on the table. Sam nodded and dropped the stained gauze pads on the floor, taking another handful from the kit and soaking them in the hot water. He worked his way from the top of the long rips down to the bottom, until the flesh was clean and the blood flowing freely. Then he opened the alcohol bottle and sluiced the wounds with a steady stream.
Even unconscious, Dean arched up against the painful bite of the liquid and Sam tightened his grip on his shoulder. There could be fibres in those tears, he thought critically, looking at them, or dirt from the thing's claws, or from the ground where his brother had been lying. There wasn't much he could do about that here. They had a good store of antibiotics both in the car and back in Lebanon, it would have to be enough. No hospital ER was very understanding about wounds like these.
"Get me the butterfly closures, I'll need about ten," Sam said quietly to Ellie, taking fresh pads and soaking up the still-flowing blood. She moved the kit and found them, stripping off the sealed packs and pulling the edges of the wounds together as Sam kept the skin dryish.
He nodded when she'd finished, taking a thick dressing and taping it over the mostly closed cuts. He lifted Dean up, holding his limp body in a mostly upright position and nodding at the rolls of bandages. "Need a pressure bandage, I think one of the ribs is cracked."
Ellie nodded and lifted out a wide, elasticised roll, undoing the end. While Sam held Dean still, she wound it around him chest and back, keeping a firm, even pressure on it and fastening it when she reached the end, pulling down the tee shirt, button shirt and coat smoothly over the dressings before Sam eased him back onto the bed.
"Thanks."
"Of course," Ellie said, picking up the mess of bloodied gauze and tape and packs and putting them in the trash can. "Are the Cassitys alright?"
"About as much as they can be," Sam said, shrugging. He didn't care about the Cassitys or the girl standing in front of him. He'd killed the fucking hellhound and bathed in its blood and it meant one thing. He couldn't stop that from circling like a vulture in his thoughts.
Dean groaned softly, rolling to his right.
"Hey," Sam said, going to the clean bowl of cold water and washing the black blood from his hands and arms, dipping one end of the towel into the water and scrubbing it from his neck and stomach.
"Hey," Dean opened an eye, looking around. "I ditch you?"
"Just as well," Sam said. "Holes were pretty deep."
He watched as his brother got to his feet unsteadily, one hand automatically reaching to press against the dressed wounds, to stop any movement that would bring more pain. Dean was looking the other way, Winchester for so much pain that there was no guarantee it wouldn't show on the face.
"You need to go to a hospital," Ellie said, looking at him.
"Ah, I've had worse," Dean said tiredly, glancing at Sam. Ellie turned to look at Sam as well.
"Yeah," Sam said, nodding. "He's had worse."
She looked back at Dean. "So what now?"
"Now, we make a hex bag," he said. "And you start running. If Crowley can't find you, then he won't be able to sick another mutt on you."
"So, I'm not going to Hell?" she asked him cautiously.
"Not on my watch," he said, ignoring his brother's look from across the room. He knew Sam's arguments. But he had another idea. All she had to do was stay alive until he could figure it out.
"Will you give us a minute?" he asked, glancing at Sam.
"Sure." Ellie nodded, walking past him to the door.
"Thanks," he said, walking to Sam as the door closed behind her. He gestured to his brother impatiently.
"Dean, even if she can dodge Crowley," Sam said slowly. "As soon as Ellie dies, her soul is earmarked for Hell."
"I know," Dean said, reaching out and taking the towel from his brother and wiping his hands.
"Why'd you tell her that then?"
"I'll figure it out, Sam," Dean said impatiently, pulling the Enochian spell from his back pocket. "She doesn't need to know the worst until it comes, does she?"
"That spell's not going to work for you, Dean," Sam said, looking at the paper.
Tipping his head back, Dean bit back the response he wanted to make. He looked down at the paper in his hands.
Sam was right, he thought. It wasn't going to work. He wasn't the chosen one. He'd failed the test. He stood there, looking at the symbols, his fingers tightening on the paper.
"It doesn't matter," he said abruptly, folding the paper up quickly and shoving it back into his pocket. "We'll track down another hellhound and I'll kill it."
"No," Sam said, turning to look at Dean, his face hard.
"Sam, I didn't pass the test," Dean said.
"But I did." Sam got up and walked to him. "And I'm doing the rest of them."
"My ass you are," Dean said, his expression pugnacious.
"Closing the gates … that's a suicide mission for you," Sam told him evenly.
"Sam –" Dean started, his face screwing up as he recognised the argument coming.
"I want to slam Hell shut too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live." He looked at Dean, not sure how to get it across to his brother. "And so should you."
"You took that choice away from me once, Dean," he continued. "And it changed me. I did things, I made choices that I would never would have made if you'd been there."
"You'd have been dead," Dean pointed out bluntly.
"That might've been better, then."
"I don't think so."
"It's not the same now," Sam said. "You have friends. People who care about you. You're not looking at a – a dead end anymore. You were right. I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't. I am. But it's there, and if you come with me, I can take you to it."
Dean pushed that thought away. There was no light for him. Maybe there never had been. He was supposed to have died. He was a wild card in this game, no play, no deal, not even supposed to be there. And he couldn't get clean.
"I'm – I'm not supposed to be here, Sammy," he said, mouth twisting as he tried to think of a way to say it without it breaking him any more than he already was. "What I did, what I've done. I can't save enough people to make that go …"
"Dean," Sam said, searching his face for what he knew was lying just beneath. "It wasn't evil. You're not evil, you didn't turn into a demon down there. You didn't."
Looking away, Dean didn't answer. Couldn't answer. He couldn't find the way out for himself. No one was going to be able to help him.
"It doesn't matter what you did," Sam pressed. "It doesn't matter what you felt."
"You don't know what I did, what I felt," Dean said, his voice dropping, riddled with anguish, his face twisted in pain as he swung back to face Sam.
"No, and I don't have to," Sam said flatly. "You were raised, Dean. God knew all of it, and he raised you. Doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that tell you that you were clean? Doesn't that tell you deserve whatever happiness you can find in this life?"
Dean stilled, staring at him, the words registering, sinking in slowly.
"You were raised by an angel and given a job to do and you did it," Sam continued forcefully. "You heard Joshua in the Garden, you had a place there. Me, they only let in because of services rendered." He ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't look at what I'd done, didn't look at the choices I'd made. I ran. Every time."
"Sam, stop it. Be smart about this –" Dean looked at him.
"I am smart, and so're you," Sam interrupted. "You're not a grunt, Dean." He shook his head. "You're the best damned hunter I've ever seen, and that includes everyone we've ever known. You're better than me, better than Dad ever was, because you know, every time, inside somewhere deep that you never fucking well acknowledge, what's right and what's wrong. You care."
Dean looked at him for a second then turned his head away, feeling a rush of unknown emotion filling him, the wall in his head bulging outward further and further. He didn't think he could get this straight, didn't think he could stand having hope.
"I believe in you, Dean," Sam said softly, looking at his brother's profile. "Please. Please, believe in me."
The memory filled Dean's mind, soft and wavery at first, then sharpening. He saw the six-year old boy, standing fearfully on one side of a narrow, rushing stream, soaked to the skin, shivering, lips blue with cold.
"C'mon Sammy, take my hand, I won't let you go." The words of the ten-year old on the far bank came back to him, clear as if he'd said them five minutes ago. "You believe me, right? Trust me?"
The little boy nodded, catching his lower lip between his teeth and reaching out across the roaring water. Dean had grabbed his hand, bracing himself on the bank. "On three, you jump. One. Two. Three." Sam had jumped, and he'd pulled. And his brother had landed safely on the other side.
He looked back at Sam, seeing the six-year old in the hazel eyes. I believe in you too, Sam.
He looked down at the paper in his hand, and reached across, slapping it into Sam's palm.
Sam opened the paper and looked at the symbols. "Ka na. Arma. Da"
The first blast felt like a hot wind, brushing by him. The second hit inside. In his mind, stabbing into him like a white-hot poker. He twisted around, falling to his knees.
"Sam?" Dean stepped forward. "Sammy?!"
Inside Sam's mind, something had changed, had opened, shedding a light too bright to bear. Eyes screwed shut, Sam felt the pulsing waves as pain along his nervous system, lighting up the neurons in his brain, flushing out everything at once.
"Sam!" Dean demanded distantly, from somewhere behind him.
Opening his eyes, Sam felt the pain vanish from his head and a burning sensation reach into him where his palm touched the floor. He watched a light brighten beneath his skin, pulsing in time with his heart, reaching up his wrist and forearm to the elbow, pinpointed with a billion glowing white connections that lit the blood vessels in his arm from beneath.
"You okay?" Dean's voice was still so far away he could barely hear him.
His arm was burning as if it was submerged in lye, the pain reaching right through him, taking his breath, slowing his heart beat, pulling at him. Then it was gone. He stared down at his arm, flexing his hand. There was nothing left of it. He could feel his pulse slowing, the pounding against the base of his throat diminishing and steadying and he got to his feet, picking up the paper.
"I'm good," he said to Dean, blinking rapidly. "I'm okay."
Dean looked at the sweat that was slicking his brother's brow, dripping from the end of his hair.
"I can do this," Sam said firmly, looking at his brother's doubt-filled expression.
"I know," Dean agreed quietly, not sure what had happened, not sure that he'd understand even if he did know.
Rawlins, Wyoming
Dean lay on his right side, staring at the wall of the motel blankly. The room was dimly lit by the reflection of the motel's neon light outside, enough to see the shapes of things, not enough for the detail.
He couldn't drive for long stretches, and Sam had looked like three flavours of hell by the time they'd passed Rock Springs. He'd suggested the stop, they could continue on in the morning. There was nothing he wanted more right this minute than to be back in the goddamned bunker, protection all around them, the peace of his room, with everything he'd managed to keep through the insanity of his life, there, around him. But another eight hours wasn't possible, for either of them.
His head was a mess, he thought wearily. More than a mess, it was a fucking hurricane in there. Sam's … speech had sounded some great clanging gongs inside of him, but he couldn't work out how to make all the pieces fit together, how to accept what he thought might be true, how to deal … with any of it.
His brother was doing the trials. He didn't know how to deal with that either, his heart racing whenever he thought of what Kevin had said about them, what he'd felt in his own gut about it. What it came down to was the same thing as always. The terror that he wasn't going to be able to protect Sam, wasn't going to be able to save him.
You went to Hell for him, the thought whispered into his mind. On the rack for thirty years, no memories of anything but an endless sea of excruciating torment that had no beginning and no end. You tortured souls, not innocent ones, but did that matter, really, in the long run? You learned to drink the pain and to want it, the way it had soothed your own. And for what? To see your brother, not safe, not living a normal life, but changed, using his abilities with Ruby by his side, drinking demon blood to get stronger, tainted by the belief that he was strong enough to kill Lilith and keep Lucifer's cage intact and being sucked right into Ruby's plan to free the devil.
He shook his head slightly. Sam was right, things weren't the same now. Doesn't make your sacrifice any more meaningful, does it? Done was done, he told himself. He'd let that go. He thought he'd let it go. Thought he'd dealt with it.
Deal with this … nothing you've ever done together has worked out well for both of you.