Chapter 16: What's In A Name?
Melanie Harker was having a fantastic week. She had spent the last seven days amassing all amassable knowledge of Cain, son of Adam. She knew more about him than scholars who had dedicated their lives to studying him and his legendary family. She had one distinct advantage over all those professors and Ph.D.s.
She knew Cain was real.
While most hunters and demons thought the man dead, she knew for a fact he was still alive. Alive, and in hiding. That was the last important fact she knew about the firstborn son of Adam and Eve.
He was not the demon she sought.
It didn't fit his M.O. to suddenly start rampaging again. After falling in love or whatever, he'd ditched the First Blade and become a recluse, so much so that even his fellow demons assumed he was dead. There had been no sign of activity from him since the night he killed his creations: the Knights of Hell.
The demon chained to a chair in the front room of the abandoned house downstairs was going to provide the final pieces of the puzzle.
She'd left him to stew in his own terrified juices as she 'prepared the knives'. Really she'd just been sitting on the abandoned bed for twenty minutes, listening to the pitiful snuffling of the Hellspawn downstairs and the endless patter of the heavy rain pummelling the ruined house.
Deciding he'd had enough, she pulled her meanest looking knife from her bag, and sauntered downstairs, ensuring every footstep was overly loud and slow. The whimpering intensified.
The knife was a beauty. It was just under a foot long from tip to the end of the leather-bound hilt and you could almost cut yourself just looking at its gleaming edges. Practically, it was quite useless: too long and cumbersome for a real fight. Its value lay in its appearance. The long, curved blade whispered of elegance and death, with one edge as sharp as a rapier and the other serrated with vicious teeth that could hook around organs and pull them out of the body, letting the victim have a good long look at their guts as they very slowly bled to death.
It was perfect for getting information.
Although, Melanie didn't really think she'd need it tonight. The demon occupying the already dead body of a middle-aged Chinese guy was no hero. He'd probably tell her how to destroy Hell itself before letting her touch him with this fine piece of steel. Not that he'd know how to destroy Hell. She doubted he knew much at his pay grade. In fact, there were only three reasons she was interested in him at all.
One, he was a demon. She killed demons. Period.
Two, he was a survivor. She'd already learned enough about him to know that he was old, at least eighty years and possibly closer to a hundred. Demons only lived that long if they knew who to back and who to avoid.
And three, he had made an enemy of the new boss.
"So then," she began conversationally, leaning against the rotted doorjamb of the front room, absent-mindedly running her fingertips over the grooves in the leather hilt. The demon shivered in fright, beads of sweat trickling down his chubby face. "I believe you know the name of the guy I'm looking for."
The demon shook harder, whimpering pathetically as he eyed the knife. "P-Please, I'll tell you, I will, j-just don't hurt me, okay? I'll tell you."
"Less promising, more doing," she ordered in a bored voice. She swung away from the doorframe and sat in the chair opposite the demon, safely outside the portable iron Devil's Trap she kept in the trunk of her car at all times. It fit nicely in the old Ford.
She held the knife casually in one hand, allowing the light of the camping lamp flicker off the shiny surface into the demon's black eyes.
He gulped audibly.
"Okay, okay, so – so you wanna know –"
"And can we stop the charade?"
"Ch-charade? What are you talking about?"
Melanie rolled her eyes and leant forward, locking her brown eyes with the demon's black ones.
"Come on. Let's not waste time and effort on this act of yours."
"W-What act? What are you talking about!" the demon shrieked, his courage quailing as she twirled the knife absentmindedly.
"I've heard of you, Jethro." The demon flinched at the sound of his name. "How d'you think I was able to find you as easily as I did? I summoned you, after all. I know your name. And," she continued, glancing down at the knife. "I know you're no coward. So drop the act, eh?"
For a moment Jethro continued to sweat, his breath shivering in and out over moistened lips, terror lining his face. Then, in a split-second, his demeanour changed. His breath stilled and the quivering lips formed an easy, confident smile. He straightened as much as the ropes would allow and cocked his head to the side, evaluating the hunter.
"Well, then," he said, his voice more sure and steady than it had been moments before, his stutter gone. "Not just a pretty face."
"Nope." Melanie smiled back, unafraid. "I got brains, too. So how about we make a deal then, yeah?"
"I'm listening."
No shit, Melanie thought, you're tied to a chair. She bit back her flippant tongue a moment before making her offer. "You tell me what I want to know about your new boss, and I won't send you back to Hell."
Jethro was silent as he considered it.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" she asked sweetly.
"I know who you are, Melanie Harker."
Melanie pretended to blush. "My my, a fancy demon knows my name. This must be how Beyoncé feels."
"You kill demons. One of the best."
"True, and I'm offering not to kill you. If you tell me what I need."
"You'll just let me go out of the goodness of your heart?" Jethro asked sceptically.
"Not at all. It's a deal. You keep your end, I keep mine. Simple as that."
"Liar."
"I could just kill you now," she offered, gesturing with the knife, the light glinting off the small symbols etched in the steel. "Death or Hell. Your choice."
That gave him pause.
"Alright," he said at last. "We have a deal. What do you want to know?"
"Your new boss. This 'Lord of Demons' I've heard so much about –"
"He's more than that," the demon chuckled.
Mel quirked her head to the side, cocking one dark and perfectly plucked eyebrow. "More? What do you mean, 'more'?"
"I mean he's the most powerful demon any of us have ever seen."
"More powerful than Cain?"
"Cain?" He scoffed. "Cain was a brute. He made his little Knights of Hell and he killed a few hundred people and it was all very sad and mankind forgot about it centuries ago."
"And you don't think they're gonna forget what your Lord of Demons has done lately?"
"Pft. Of course not. You've been watching the news, right?"
Of course she had. Every night was another tragedy. A station full of policemen attacking a town in Missouri for no reason, the drastic increase in crime nationwide – the signs were there for all to see. Of course, most people were blind to what was staring them right in the face. But not hunters.
"I've caught it once or twice," she allowed, twisting one of the iron rings she wore with the hand still holding the knife. They were handy, these rings. She wore four on each hand. They made punching ghosts and demons far more effective. And satisfying.
"All those people, normal, good, perfect people suddenly going postal over nothing? All the crimes, all the murders, all the massacres? That's not just people having enough of their boring little lives. That's him. And he's only just getting started."
"Your Lord of Demons?"
"Yes."
"He's behind all of it?"
"Yep."
"Well, ain't he a busy bee. How?"
Jethro laughed as lightning flashed through the cracks in the boarded up windows. "I said I'd talk, I didn't say I'd condemn myself!"
"Condemn yourself to what?"
"Why do you think I've been running?" Fear, real fear, crept into his black eyes. "I made him mad. He's out for my blood. If he finds me, if he finds out I told you anything about what he's planning, how he's doing it, I'm worse than dead."
"Yeah, boohoo," Melanie snapped, reaching down to the floor and grabbing the flask of holy water by her chair. She untwisted the lid and threw a crystal-like ribbon of water over the demon. Jethro roared in pain as his skin hissed and burned. Steam curled off him in graceful spirals.
"Spare me your sob story. Get back to the point," she continued over the grunts of pain. "Why are you so afraid of this guy?"
"Because," he snarled, the words contorted with rage and pain. "He is more than just some demon out for power. He is the Son of Cain."
These words clearly didn't have the effect he was hoping for.
"The what now?"
"The Son of Cain!" Jethro shouted, his voice echoed by a roll of distant thunder.
"Cain never had children. He has no son. His descendants are just –"
"Fool!" he hissed, leaning as far forward as the tension in the ropes would allow. "Dean Winchester is not a son of the blood! He's a son of the Mark!"
Ah, finally. She had the name. Dean Winchester. The satisfaction of a mystery solved swept through her and she savoured every second of it.
But wait. Winchester. Hadn't she always told Rupert the world would be in trouble if either of the Winchesters turned against them? They may have stopped an apocalypse or two, but the Winchesters were cursed. Everyone around them died, and they never cared.
"Mark?" she asked, masking her glee with a scowl. "You mean the Mark of Cain?"
"Exactly! He has the Mark and the Blade and nothing can stop him!"
The fear in Jethro's voice wasn't adding up.
"Then why are you running from him? Cain was like a god to your kind before. Why aren't you grovelling at this Dean guy's feet, worshiping him?"
"Because!" he spat through gritted teeth. "He's not just some demon! He's more!"
"What do you mean 'more'?" Mel pressed, her patience wearing thin.
"He's not just some brute killing for the fun of it! Not all the time! He has a plan!"
"What plan?" she asked, too quickly.
Jethro shook his head, falling back against the back of the chair. "No. No, I can't."
Melanie rolled her eyes again and reached once more for the flask.
Jethro saw the cap twist off the bottle and straightened his back.
"Do it," he challenged. "I don't care. I was wrong – the deal's off. He – the things he'll do to me if he finds out? It's nothing compared to what you and your little pig-sticker can do."
Melanie rose to her feet, considering the demon's resolve. She set the bottle down and twirled the knife in her hands as he watched her with determined eyes.
"You sure?"
He nodded. "What he'll do to me ... what he's capable of ... You can't imagine." The fear in his eyes was quickly turning to terror. "You'd be doing me a favour, killing me. At least then I'd be safe."
Melanie's eyebrows raised in surprise. Just talking about this Dean demon was making this guy suicidal. Well, she'd gotten what she wanted. The rest could wait.
She shrugged and plunged the knife hilt-deep into the demon's chest. Orange fire flashed behind the skeleton, illuminating the skull and ribs as the demon died, screaming in pain.
That was the other reason Melanie kept this showy blade. It had been made by the Kurds.
She wrenched the blade out of the corpse and cleaned it on the dead man's clothes. She'd bury the Chinese guy tomorrow, once the rain stopped. Then she'd leave an anonymous tip at the local sheriff's office, get the poor guy's family some closure.
Closure she'd never gotten.
Shaking her head to keep her thoughts on track, she snatched up the flask of holy water and headed back up the stairs to her waiting sleeping bag.
Today had been a good day. Now she had the final ingredient.
The name. Dean Winchester.
She didn't care if he was the lord of universe, she would have him. She would feel his blood trickle down her arm as she gutted him. He would pay for killing Max. Nothing could stop her now.
Melanie Harker smiled a rare, wide, satisfied grin.
Dean was hers.