Elizabeth looks up when Dean walks into the motel room, her Kindle propped up on her knees as she scrolls through the various websites on lore. She hasn't been able to find anything so far and the boys back in Oklahoma are going through books that Zane has in his attic. Sam glances over at Elizabeth, both of them engaging in a sort of staring contest to see who'll be the one to break the bad news to Dean.
"Find anything," Dean asks, stopping near the small table that Sam's seated at. Elizabeth's eyes are beginning to sting when Sam finally blinks and looks away.
"I'm sorry," he says a moment later, blinking rapidly as she does the same.
"Why, what'd you do?" Dean looks her way before his eyes dart around the room as though checking to make sure Sam hasn't done something to Dean's stuff as a prank. "You didn't put hair dye in my shampoo again, did you?"
"What? No."
"Because I swear, I'll get you back if you did."
"Dean, shut up and listen to me." Elizabeth sets her Kindle aside and moves to stand next to Dean, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his chest as his arms go around her. "Marshall Hall, the guy that died from the heart attack…. It happened the same time you got healed by Le Grange." Dean's arms tighten around her, not enough to be painful, and she can feel him stop breathing for a second.
"The exact same time?"
"Yeah, man. Liza, Archer, and Zane have been making their way through the lore to try and find out what's doing this while I made up a list of everyone that's died in this town on the same dates that people have been healed. There have been six so far this year and all the healings correspond with deaths, and the deaths were caused by the same things that Le Grange had healed."
"It's crazy," Elizabeth says. "I can't find anything that matches up with this. What if Roy is some kind of mutant and doesn't realize he's actually killing healthy people?"
"It doesn't matter," Dean states, dropping down into the free chair. "Marshall Hall died to save me and that's not right. I should be dead and he should be doing laps in that fucking swimming pool he died at. You guys should've just let me die in that motel room instead of bringing me here."
"Don't you think you deserved to be healed?"
"Why do I deserve that?" She moves over to him, cupping his face in her hands to make him look up at her. "Why doesn't someone else? Like that woman with the brain tumor?"
"Or the man that was electrocuted while saving two children from a monster? The man that sacrificed his childhood to make sure innocent people are safe." She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before continuing. "You of all people have a right to live after all the crap that's been heaped onto you."
"That's bulls—"
"Dean Anthony Winchester, you are one of the best people I know and I'll be damned if I let you die when there's a way to stop it!"
"What about Marshall, huh? Didn't he deserve to live, too? I'm not special, Liza, and I don't want to be the cause of anymore deaths."
"Too goddamned bad because there are going to be future cases where we can't save everyone. The point is that a lot of people would have died if you weren't here. I would still be in Oklahoma resisting the urge to hit my neighbor with a bat and Sammy would be bored in law school. We love you and we won't let you die peacefully."
She can see the tears gathering in Dean's eyes and the way he presses his lips together to keep them from quivering, but he doesn't blink the tears away as he reaches up to cover her hands with his own.
"I love you guys, too," he mutters. Dean takes a moment to compose himself, clearing his throat a couple of times. "So how's it happening?"
"No clue," Sam answers," but remember how you said you saw an old man?"
"Yeah."
"Well, the guy that I talked to at the pool said that Marshall was running from something, so maybe you weren't hallucinating after all."
"Well, thanks for that, Sammy. That's a real confidence booster." Sam opens his mouth with a comment, but Elizabeth's text alert interrupts him. He pushes the phone over to her without even looking at the screen and she makes a little ah-ha sound when she reads what Archer has sent. "What is it?"
"Archer found the missing piece to our puzzle," she says. "Old Roy Le Grange has a Reaper doing his bidding. He's got it bound to him somehow and he's using it to heal people."
"Why would the Grim Reaper be doing Le Grange's dirty work, though," Sam asks. Dean shakes his head, taking the phone from to reread the text as Sam begins to type away on his laptop. "I mean, isn't it supposed to be super powerful?"
"It's either super powerful or enslaved to two ten year olds that beat it in a limbo contest." The look Sam sends Elizabeth could have made milk curdle. "Okay, bad time for references to cartoons, but you get the damn picture."
"You're both wrong," Dean states," it's not the Reaper, it's just a Reaper. There's lore of them in every culture and there's hundreds of names for them, so they might be plural rather than singular. And besides…." He trails off, shuffling through the numerous papers spread out on the table. "Reapers stop time, just like the frozen clock at that pool Marshall Hall died at. I'd bet my right foot that all the other clocks near our victims froze, too. Plus, you can only see them when they're coming at you, so that explains why I was the only one that saw Lurch."
"What if Zane and Archer are wrong?"
"I seriously doubt it. The only thing we need to figure out right now is how Roy's controlling the damn thing."
"What about the cross," Sam suggests.
"Cross," Elizabeth asks, arching her brows.
"I saw this weird cross in the church tent and it looked really familiar." He grabs a deck of Tarot cards out of his bag, shuffling through them rapidly until he finds the one he wants and holds it out for her and Dean to see. The wonky cross is in the top left corner, colored yellow and contained inside a perfect circle that serves as the top piece of a staff.
"Are you going to read my palm, Sammy? Tell me I'm destined to meet a handsome stranger?"
"Shut up, you're just jealous you didn't find it first."
"Sorry, I was more worried about getting our idiot on stage to be healed rather than taking in the décor."
"That's enough," Dean snaps, bringing up a hand to cover Elizabeth's mouth when she opens it to respond. "What does a Tarot card have to do with any of this? Jesus!" Dean pulls his hand away quickly, wiping it on his pants leg to get her saliva off. She gives him a smug grin as she moves to stand behind Sam's chair. "You can't just go around biting people."
"Sure I can, I just did." She claps a hand down on Sam's shoulder, still grinning over at Dean. "Alrighty, Sam, explain why your cross is on the Craigslist psychic cards." With a frown, Sam flicks her hand before returning his gaze to his brother.
"Way back when," Sam explains," Christians used to use magic before they considered it taboo, but a few of them veered off the moral high ground and got into the dark stuff—necromancy, controlling death, pushing it away."
"So Roy's using the dark arts," Dean asks, continuing at a nod from Sam. "And he just found the spell to bind a Reaper to him, so everyone flocks to him like flies to honey."
"Yeah, but the fly he's controlling is more like a tornado that he's trying to go Pecos Bill on." The honest-to-god stupidity of people will never cease to amaze her. For once, just once, can't they have a human case that isn't them delving into some Voldemort type shit?
"Okay, so if we stop Roy then we stop all of this shit that's going on."
"Do you have a plan or are you just gonna make it up as you go along?"
"Bullet in the brain."
"Uh, that's called murder," Elizabeth points out. "In case you didn't remember, that's kind of frowned upon by a majority of the populace."
"He's committed murders. I mean, we're not even sure how many he's got under his belt, so why shouldn't we stop him permanently? Someone's got to."
"If we kill him, then we're no better than he is," Sam returns incredulously.
"Okay, so we can't kill Roy and we can't kill death, so how are you planning to stop all of this?"
"Break the spell."
The muddy lot is packed when they arrive for the service, the sign out front flashing to draw the eye of passersby. They park as close to the tent as they can, moving with determination as they get out of the car. They're on a mission now and the only thing that'll stop them is if it will undo Dean's healing. Elizabeth draws the line at that, she wants that little asshole to stay alive.
"If Roy's using a spell then he's probably got a spell book," Sam says.
"Then you're going to find the damn thing," Dean says. "I'll do what I can to stall Roy."
"What about me," Elizabeth asks, looking between the two men. "What am I supposed to do when you're stalling and Sam's snooping?"
"Cause a ruckus when I inevitably get arrested or thrown out. You know how to do that, don't you?" She grins and dips her head in a nod as they start moving again. The protester from that first day that an officer had escorted off the property is back at it, handing out homemade flyers and grinning when the hunters clap him on the back.
The tent is filling quickly, Dean and Elizabeth fighting the tide for a seat when Dean's cell starts ringing. He answers it without looking at the ID, holding it against his ear. Elizabeth rises up on her toes to listen in, balancing with one hand on his shoulder.
"This is Dean."
"I know who this is, you idiot," Sam says, muffled through the speaker. "I know his pattern now. He's choosing people he sees as immoral; a gay teacher, and abortion activist, people who go against down home Christian values." There's a pause and then Sam's talking again. "Dean, our protester's next. There's a newspaper clipping in the book and the bold letters has that guy calling this place a cult."
"The guy in the parking lot?"
"Yeah. I got him, just don't let Roy heal anyone." Dean hangs up and stuffs his phone back in his pocket, scowling up at the blind man on the stage.
"Are you sure we can't just shoot him?"
"There's no polite way to do that, hon," she says, patting his arm. The seats are full by now, so they're left standing along the fringes of the group. Roy is grinning like he isn't about to murder a guy, someone he's probably not said two words to. But…. Something's off about that smile, the genuine pleasure in it not seeming to mask anything. "Are we sure it's Roy?"
"He's the one doing the healing."
"He's also blind."
"His wife isn't." Elizabeth's gaze cuts to Sue Ann, the older woman standing out of the spotlight but still on the stage. She doesn't want the attention, she just wants her husband.
"Layla," Roy calls. "Layla Rourke, would you please come up here?" Dean sucks in a sharp breath, but Elizabeth ignores it and the thunderous applause. Layla Rourke has a brain tumor, Dean had congestive heart failure or something like it, and Roy…. Roy had cancer that put him in a coma, he didn't have much time to study up on witchcraft and Elizabeth's known enough southern Christians to recognize a burn in hell zealot when she sees one.
"He's innocent," she murmurs, turning wide eyes up to Dean. "He doesn't realize what he's doing."
"He probably just had his wife read the spell for him like he does the newspaper," Dean says.
"He told his wife to pray for him right before he slipped into a coma, he should be dead by now. What if Sue Ann couldn't handle that and did a little healing of her own?"
"What do we do? This kid has a brain tumor."
"And the protestor outside is completely healthy. You wanna let him die?" Dean lets out a whine before his arm shoots out, grasping lightly at Layla's arm to keep her from going up on stage.
"Layla, you can't go up there."
"What are you talking about," Layla asks. "I've waited months for this."
"Just wait a little bit longer, okay? If you do this now, something bad is going to happen." She glances between her mother and Sue Ann's beckoning hand, biting her lip. Elizabeth can recognize the desperation; she'd probably looked the same way when she saw Dean in the hospital bed. She knows what the outcome is going to be before Layla opens her mouth.
"I'm sorry, Dean. I have to do this."
"Cause a distraction," Elizabeth hisses, grabbing at Dean's jacket. "He can't hurt anyone if he doesn't have an altar." Dean nods, heading towards the entrance and peering out. Layla's on stage now, Roy's hands held out in front of him as he asks for prayers.
"Fire," Dean shouts. "There's a fire! We gotta get out of here!" It's surprisingly easy to blend in with the chaos despite the fact that she's going against the flood of people, gaze flicking over the stage where Roy's being assisted down the steps, finding nothing beyond the piano with its regular old cross on top. "Liza! It's still happening!"
"I'm working on it!" She elbows a man out of her way, spotting Sue Ann in the corner just off the stage. She has her back turned to the fleeing congregation, shoulders hunched and head bowed. Elizabeth's willing to bet that the woman isn't asking for divine intervention on behalf of the flammable canvas.
Elizabeth doesn't bother with subtlety, straight out tackling Sue Ann to the ground before flipping her onto her back. The woman looks shocked as she stares up at Elizabeth, letting out a gasp when Elizabeth goes for the cross around her neck.
"Help," Sue Ann yells, shrill. "Help me! I'm being attacked! Help!" Elizabeth has a good hold on the cross when strong arms wrap around her, but her palms are sweaty and she looses her grip as she's yanked backwards by the cops. Dean's forced aside when Elizabeth is carted out of the tent, watching as Sue Ann steps in front of them to make them stop.
"Let me go," she growls, struggling against the tight hold on her arms.
"I don't understand, why would you attack me? After all my husband did for your boyfriend? Roy healed him."
"You know what I don't understand? Why someone that's supposed to be a good Christian would take advantage of her disabled husband's faith and use it to kill innocent people. Can you answer that?" She frowns, almost sincere in the disappointment she puts on for everyone to see. Elizabeth knows better. "Tell you what, I'll leave you alone if you burn that cheap ass necklace."
"Let her go, gentlemen. I won't be pressing charges."
"A little late to hand out goodwill towards others, wouldn't you say?" Sue Ann shakes her head and strides away to where her husband is waiting, not casting a look back.
"If we catch you around here again, we'll put the fear of God into you ourselves," the cop on her left says. "Understood?" Elizabeth gives him a wry smile, relaxing into the hold. It's not the first time she's been threatened by a cop and she doubts this will be the last time.
"Is that a promise? I've always liked the way handcuffs feel." His smile fades into a sneer and he shoves her away, shaking his head. "What's wrong, big guy? Afraid you won't be able to get it up if I'm willing?"
"I think that's enough taunting armed men for one day," Dean says, sweeping in and drawing her away from the crowd of on-lookers. "Just because you're white doesn't mean they won't shoot you."
"True enough."