Vee curled herself into a fetal position as gunfire erupted in the kitchen of the Noceda home. She was having difficulty focusing, now halfway transformed between Camilla and her human teen form, unsure what would be safest. She felt no pain despite the loud ringing in the room, and she risked a glance around the room. A familiar screech sent dread running through her as she focused on the amorphous form of Belos nearly filling the kitchen. The glowing blue eyes, the grey-green skin oozing off of his skeleton, the long tangled grey hair, antlers, and angry screaming maw. "No! You went back to the Demon Realm! You can't still be here!" she shouted, crawling away from the beast. Her tormentor for years.
Belos reached out with a slimy tendril from his arm, forcing the taller man against a wall while the other quickly and expertly dumped a number of shells from his pistol and injected another ring of bullets to replace them. "Witch Killer bullets, bitch!" he shouted, pulling the trigger and fanning the hammer like he was a cowboy in an old movie.
The monster screeched in agony as each round burned its way into him, expelling plumes of smoke from each wound. The attack forced Belos back, squeezing through the back door as the taller man brought his blade down on the tendril holding him to the wall, severing it enough for him to drop to the floor. "Sam! You okay?!" the man with the pistol shouted, taking Vee by the arm and pulling her to her feet. "Come on, we've gotta get…"
"Dean, that's not Camilla." Sam said, climbing to his feet.
Dean looked at Vee, who was substantially shorter than Camilla, with her green and blue ears protruding out from Camilla's dark, curled hair. Her skin was dark like Camilla's, with light freckles, and yellow eyes that blinked in a horizontal motion as she shrunk back. Dean paused for a moment before giving a resigned shrug. "Whatever. This night can't get much weirder."
Three hours earlier…
"No, I've never heard of a Demon Realm other than Hell or Purgatory either." Castiel said over the phone, his gravelly voice echoing through the underground bunker back in Kansas. "There are other worlds that God created though. There could be any number of other dimensions. For example, the Boiling Isles…"
"Thanks Cas. Keep us posted if you learn anything." Dean said, hanging up the phone while driving back to Gravesfield. "You find anything in that journal we got from Jacob?"
"Actually yeah." Sam replied. "Turns out this Stanford Pines guy explored multiple worlds before coming back. He claims to have confronted a lot of different monsters."
"Why haven't we ever heard of him before?"
"Well it sounds like he stayed pretty local to a small town in Oregon."
"Oregon? All these monsters in one little town?"
"Yeah. He was working on figuring out why when the journal seems to get taken over by someone else."
"Okay, well any insight on what we're trying to kill on the other side of the damn country?" Dean asked, growing frustrated. He hated not knowing how to kill something. "Kinda wishing we still had the Colt or First Blade or something."
"The First Blade turned you into a demon."
"Yeah Sam. I was there. Doesn't mean I can't wish for an easy answer to today's problems."
Sam shook his head, reading further into the journal. "Demon Realm. Looks like he visited this place. It says here it was a whole civilization of Witches living on the corpse of a Titan."
"A Titan?!" Dean asked in surprise. "Like Prometheus? Like Greek Pagan gods Titan?!" Sam remained silent. "C'mon Sammy, don't leave me in suspense here."
"A Titan as in the size of an island Titan. He only has sketches here but it looks like a corpse bigger than Texas."
"Wonderful."
"I mean, the good news is that they're all dead. But the monarch has a pretty familiar mask." Sam said, opening the journal enough for Dean to glance at.
"Our resident slime monster likes to dress up as a wendigo. Okay, so something's gotta kill it."
"Unfortunately, the journal doesn't go into that specifically, but this Belos monster apparently made the claim that he was the most powerful witch that ever lived."
"We'll have to let Rowena know. Okay, so it's some kind of mutant Witch-Wendigo hybrid? What are you thinking? Incendiary Witch Killers?"
"Dean, there's only so much we can pack into a single bullet."
"Oh, I'm not talkin' about no bullet." Dean replied.
The Impala lumbered down the street of Gravesfield, earning discerning looks from trick-or-treaters that were now out on the street with the sun descending on the horizon. "We've gotta find this thing fast, Sam. It's going to be damn near impossible to track in the dark and I'm guessing it's going to be getting hungry for something more than roadkill."
"That's been bugging me. That thing we fought was too small to have been draining full size deer. What if there's more than one?" Sam asked as they exited the car.
"You think there's a bigger one somewhere?"
"We don't know what's possible with this thing."
"This night just keeps getting better. Hey, check it out." Dean gestured to the Halloween festival going on. "Fancy a ride?" he grinned, still finding the appeal of teasing his younger brother.
Sam grumbled. "Why are we here?"
"Because I have a hunch that those kids that were hanging out with Camilla's daughter somehow know what's going on in this town, and I'm hoping they just might be here. Also, I need a corndog."
The Winchesters entered through the gate to the Halloween Festival, suddenly feeling exposed and underdressed as they towered over all of the costumed children running around the field. "Let me guess," Sam said, "Split up?"
"Gonna have to." Dean replied. "How many kids were in that group at the diner?"
Sam thought back for a moment. "I don't know, like six?"
"Right. One of them has to know what's going on and hopefully mama bear isn't around to lawyer up this time."
"Just don't get called out on stranger danger alright?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah." he mumbled, walking toward the food trucks that were parked nearby. He carefully scanned the crowds as he waited in line at 'Durango's Deep Fried Dogs', with a pair of kids dressed as some kind of Star Trek characters in front of him.
"Do you think Chief Engineer O'Bailey is really going to be able to help the crew despite being programmed to be a traitor?" the taller kid, dressed in yellow with a cardboard monocle strapped to his face asked the shorter kid, dressed in red with a pair of cardboard earmuffs on.
"I thought you didn't want spoilers?" the younger kid asked.
"I don't! I'm just… thinking."
"Well don't strain anything. Hey, you want to check out the play once we get our Not Dogs?"
"These are Deep Fried Dogs, Gus."
"Right. I wonder why humans decided to deep fry dogs."
The taller kid shrugged. "Humans are weird."
Dean rolled his eyes. He hadn't heard anyone larping since Charlie was around. It made him miss the ginger nerd that had become like a little sister that he never wanted.
The kids grabbed their junk food and began to leave, still talking between themselves. "So?" The younger one said. "Want to join Willow and I at the Witch Trial?"
"Oh, uhm, nah. I, uh, think I'll go find Luz." the older one stammered.
Dean placed some cash on the food truck's counter and ordered a pair of corndogs before the kid's conversation grabbed his attention. "Son of a bitch!" he grumbled as he turned around to search for the pair of knock off Trekkies. He raced off into the crowd, leaving his corndogs and cash in the hands of the food truck cook. His language earned him a dirty look from a mother and young child that had been in line behind him.
He spun several times, attempting to spot either of the two boys before the one named Gus showed up on the stage of a skit being performed for a small crowd. Trying to be nonchalant as he could, Dean wound his way into the audience before being unexpectedly shoved to the side. He readied a fist before recognizing Jacob barging through the crowd and tripping over the rope separating the audience from the actors.
"Why are you clapping?!" Jacob shouted as he stood. "These children are demon spawn. And they want your teeth!" he continued to rant, pulling the earmuffs off of the kid. "Look! Look at his ears! He's from Mars!"
Gus looked nervous for a moment before pointing a finger. "Hey, lay off the costume, man."
"This guy…" Dean chuckled to the patron next to him as a pair of security guards charged forward and tackled Jacob to the ground. "Let me go!" he shouted, and locked eyes on Dean. "You! FBI! Arrest those kids! They're the demons!"
Dean swore under his breath, looking back in an attempt to assume he was calling for someone else. As everyone turned to face him, he had no choice but to duck out of the crowd.
Sam was searching the other side of the festival, passing by crowds of children that couldn't help but look up at him from nearly knee level. He grimaced at a trio of teen girls dressed as 'Sam, Dean and Castiel' from Chuck Shurley's novel series, and another pair of girls from the Good Witch Azura YA novels by Mildred Featherwhyle. He vaguely recalled the series of books that he had read as a kid. He was often left in random libraries while Dean and their dad were out hunting.
Spotting a group of specific kids in a crowd of similarly aged children was going to be impossible. He needed something that would grab their attention. Searching the area, his eye caught a poster advertising a hay ride, referring to a story in Gravesfield's past about a pair of orphaned brothers. He pulled a pamphlet with a summary of the story and stuffed it into his jacket before turning back, only to find the pair dressed as Azura missing.
"Luz! Amity! Come for the hay ride!" another girl, dressed as a classic horned and tailed devil with a pitchfork, called.
A collection of five of the kids from the diner, dressed in various costumes, climbed onto a hay-lined wagon with another teen dressed as an Oz-themed witch that seemed part of the display. Sam cursed, running toward the hay ride, only to see it roll away. "Hold up!"
"Get back! You'll have to wait for the next show." a young girl dressed as a demonic clown ordered, getting in his way with her arms crossed defiantly.
"What? No, I need to talk to those kids!" Sam insisted, taking a step back from the costumed teen.
"Well, you'll have to wait. Creep."
Sam set his jaw in determination, and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out his FBI badge. "Agent Scheuble…"
"Maybe try dressing up if you're going to pose as law enforcement. Something other than flannel. Besides, aren't you a little old to be here?"
"Fine." he relented, fumbling to put his badge back in his jacket as the security clown stepped forward, forcing him to take another step back. "Where does the hay ride end?"
She pointed across the festival grounds, and Sam nodded. "Thanks." he said, eager to get out of the situation as he moved away. Demon and ghost clowns he could at least kill, but a human teen clown…
Sam retreated with a cold chill running through him before bumping into Dean coming his way. "Find anything?" they asked in unison.
"Two kids dressed as Trekkies or something. I was following one before you got in the way. I think his ears were real."
"His ears?" Sam shook his head. "Five of them just got on a hayride that I'm told ends over there."
Dean looked past him and rolled his eyes. "And let me guess, Pennywise there blocked your path?"
"I hate Halloween, alright?"
"Okay, well I'm not seeing any sign of our Hedorah pal. I guess we wait for this hayride to be done."