Chapter 1
to:
Chapter 6
Audio has been compromised, the track was this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy7FzXLin7o
I thought it'd be quick, y'know. Maybe a few reassuring last words with your loved one or whoever the hell is nearby. I didn't believe in a Heaven or Hell, still don't, but it was never supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to become the very thing I hunted.
My name's Sarah Elizabeth Bowen. I was born in the village of Millbrook, Greater Manchester, England. I'm 24 years old.
I'm a ghost. I'm stuck. I'm immortal. I'm wrong.
It was raining on the day of my funeral. I've always loved rain, the feel of it on my skin. I wished it would stop, stop going right through me and reminding me of how dead I am. Which is ironic considering this is my funeral.
The funeral's at some hick church in whatever town in the middle of nowhere I died in. My family's long dead of course, nobody to send my body back to. No one to miss me. It's nice of them to give me a proper funeral though, they didn't even know who I was; my records were wiped long ago.
The hearse had arrived at a dead crawl with the rest of the cars and was unloaded equally slowly. I wish they'd get on with it. Everyone had already rushed inside to get out of the rain, it was just me standing next to a bush watching the procession.
My coffin was slowly taken up the alley on the shoulders of the men in black trenchcoats and I followed it, invisible to everyone else. I don't even remember how I got here, I just was.
The coffin was mounted on the stone slab amongst the flowers, the trenchcoat men sidled away and the ceremony began. I stood a little way behind it on the edge of the platform, even I didn't like being near my dead body -not after all the things I'd seen to do with dead bodies- or the attendees for that matter. And boy were there a lot of them. I had to do a double take, it was like the entire town had showed up.
I scanned the seated crowd of all ages and backgrounds, greasy teenagers forced to smarten up for the occasion with their parents and old people who'd become accustomed to attend funerals at least once a month, all strangers.
But there was Sam and Dean right at the front and I couldn't help but feel a little safer, at least this whole ghost thing would be over soon and they'd make sure my bones were burnt. They looked so hollow and anguished, they'd even dressed appropriately -though undoubtedly in one of the cheap suits of their many disguises- I was kinda flattered, despite the whole morbid situation. Dean had refused to button up his jacket, as he always did if he could get away with it, and I gave a small smile. It felt like a pretence, just painting a smile on a translucent piece of paper. I focused on their pitiful faces again to distract myself and twitched the replica of my mouth up again as I saw they'd combed their hair all neat and respectably too. To an extent. Wait, was Dean crying?
Before I could take a second look however a rotund middle-aged guy who didn't look one bit comfortable in all the pomp and circumstance he was wearing stepped up to the platform and began speaking.
"Today we mourn the loss of, and give our eternal thanks to, the woman whose sacrifice saved all our lives." He began mournfully and my eyes latched on to the gold amulet of a Mayor hanging around his neck on a blue ribbon.
And then I remembered. I remembered how I died.
September 2006
Chapter 1
On the edge of a remote town in Minnesota was a diner, screaming for a good clean or even a shower of rain. It was once a kind of pale beige with a red lining, but it'd long faded to dirty patches of beige and the scratched silver beneath it, the relentless sun drained the bright red to a rusty dried-blood colour. And yet it seemed to be the hotspot of the town to the disbelief of the female outsider trying to get a serious answer from its many customers.She was a blonde, but the natural kind hinting towards more of a desaturated pale brown rather than gold, who obviously took pride in her natural looks as it could easily be enhanced with a few highlights to be the envy of any of the fake-blonde clowns she despised. Not that she cared. Her hair was straight and chopped short to her collarbone, but had an uneven wave to it, reminiscent of rare efforts to glam it up then moodily shoving it in a ponytail anyway. Her clothes were casual but neat and stylish, even if the colours were all neutral and easy to fade into the dark. Black flat boots that just went up to her calf, easy for running and pulling on in a rush; a waterproof navy fitted jacket; sturdy grey-blue skinny jeans and a tight black t-shirt with her favourite band logo on it, barely distinguishable as it was so faded. Nothing to snag on anything or be used against her in a fight, not even any jewellery except for a bright green ring with a hypnotising pattern like an oil spill on her right index finger. Her face wasn't anything spectacular either, her features were too harsh to be typically pretty but it was her eyes that stood out the most. Devoid of any make-up, the sky blue colour stood out a mile though it was the golden circles around her pupils that made them unique, especially against her pale skin. She was a stranger, and a mystifying one at that.
Which is why the man she was currently questioning refused to do anything but chat her up.
"Are you sure you haven't seen anything unusual lately?" She asked the brown-haired man in dusty dungarees and a red baseball cap in front of her for the third time, her black notepad at the ready.
"No darlin', but I'm looking at one right now." He and his straw-haired acne-ridden friend barely out of his teens chuckled as they stared at her and she exhaled deeply, looking out of the large window behind them in despair. "But let me ask you a question now," he said smugly and the young woman braced herself. "Those eyes? You obviously come from Heaven, so tell me, did it hurt when-" He started but she cut him off with a groan.
"Ok, stop! How about you?" She asked and turned to his friend. "Anything, like strange weather or, I don't know, patterns in the crop fields!" She said desperately as she tried to come up with something these backwards farm-hands would understand.
"Oho our angel's an alien geek now?" The brown-haired one smirked and she closed her eyes as she realised the mistake she'd made saying that, thinking that she really would prefer a haunting of ghouls or zombie apocalypse right now.
"Well I got nothin', 'cept for the rain stoppin'." His teenage friend said when he'd stopped grinning and she suddenly paid attention.
"The rain stopped?" She repeated to herself. "How long's it been like this?" She asked and began scribbling in her notepad.
"Since last month. Why? D'you dry it all up?" He asked, finally thinking of a joke to match his 'witty' friend's and they broke into howls of laughter again.
The woman groaned again and seeing she was going to get nothing more out of them, snapped her notepad shut, gave them a tight smile and headed towards the bar. Despising the taste of alcohol, lemonade was her sanctuary. And man she needed some right now. Cold, preferably freezing.
"You sure you got no bruises from falling, sweetheart? Cause I could sure kiss 'em better!" The older one called after her as a last attempt and they began howling again.
Freezing enough to bring on a coma, she thought as she gritted her teeth and wound her way through the tables.
Then from a circular high bar table a few feet away from her drifted the conversation of two young men with a silver laptop and a haggard leather journal, comparing the vitality of an Askrechi demon in a fight with a werewolf over a woman at great length.
The woman broke into a grin, she'd finally hit gold. Maybe these amateur enthusiasts would know something of actual relevance to help her.
"No no no, Sammy, listen." The shorter, dark blonde one said to the other patronisingly in a deep voice and stuck out his hand to make his point. "If a werewolf sets its eyes on something it never stops. Ever."
"Yeah, but if an Askrechi gets its hands on it the werewolf would never remember what it was going for." His taller, dark-haired friend countered.
"It's not like that, the memory doesn't stop the stink it's got in its snout." The other insisted and tapped his nose.
"But-" 'Sammy' started.
"Considering that a werewolf would be immune to anything but something with a silver alloy when it's transformed, the Askechi's influence would pass right over its oversized mongrel brain, and just rip it to pieces anyway." The woman butted in and they turned to her in surprise.
"...Well there you go." The blonde one said smugly to his friend.
"Not to intrude but a werewolf's as thick as anything once it's transformed, never try dating one." She said apologetically to Sammy and he nodded to her in consent.
"And you would be?" His friend asked.
"Sarah Bowen." She replied willingly and offered him her hand. He shook it and both were surprised by the strength of the other's grip.
"Sarah, not the first one we've met." He said and turned to Sammy suggestively as he shook her hand, who shook his head at him in shame.
"Well, it is a common name." Sarah replied tightly, not realising that he was trying to set her and Sammy up.
"Mm. And I'm guessing you're not from around here, not with that accent." He said, referring to her English accent and almost fell off his stool when he looked at her properly for the first time.
"No, and hopefully I won't have to stay here a second longer than I have to." Sarah replied as he righted himself and cleared his throat awkwardly to his friend's amusement.
"Woah, those are some eyes." He said and laughed weakly, trying to cover his embarrassment.
"Thanks, gift from a demon." She said flippantly and their eyebrows shot up. "Look, I'm trying to find a friend of mine and the only thing I can find out from the local idiots over there is that the rain's stopped in the past month. I've followed these crazy weather patterns for weeks, but they literally dry up here. I was wondering if you'd spotted anything else? Sounds like you know your stuff." She said, not meaning the last part seriously at all.
"Yeah we've noticed the same." Sammy said and started tapping on his laptop's keyboard. "But sounds like you do too." He said and raised his eyebrow at her questioningly.
"Let's just say it runs in the family." Sarah said vaguely and smiled thinly.
His friend frowned at both of them and tried to reign the conversation back under his control. "I'm Dean, this is Sam." Dean said equally vaguely, not wanting to give anything away until they knew more about her, but her eyebrows shot up anyway.
"Sam and Dean? The Winchesters?" She asked and laughed incredulously. Forget gold, this was platinum.
"Y-Yeah." Dean said and shifted awkwardly in his seat, exchanging puzzled looks with his brother. "How'd you know that?" He asked and now she was stumped. She needed their help, but didn't want anyone knowing a thing about her.
"I knew your father, John Winchester." She said reluctantly and they both looked at her more intently than before, exchanging frowns.
"What? How?" Sam spluttered.
"It's complicated but I was only a kid at the time, haven't seen him since. Nice though, eyes like yours," she nodded to Sam, "grubby stubble, never told you anything important." She said to hopefully ease any doubts they had and Dean nodded hesitantly.
"Sounds like dad, but like Sam said, how the hell do you know all this? And what are you doing here?" Dean asked threateningly and she sighed.
"I told you, I'm looking for a friend of mine." Sarah repeated, avoiding his first question, but gave in when she saw they weren't going to accept that so easily. "We were hunting something down for a while, but somehow it moved to America-" She said and took in their expressions with some amusement. "What? Did you think you were the only hunters out there?" She asked scornfully and they glanced at eachother again. "Anyway, my partner and I got separated about two weeks ago and I haven't seen him since. Figure whatever it is took him, and I tracked it down to this desolate pit where the trail went cold. And I think you're looking for the same thing too." She suggested slyly and the brothers looked at eachother indecisively, then Sam nodded and Dean shrugged.
"Whatever it is, it's nasty, really nasty. And powerful, to affect an entire area like this... If it's taken your friend I doubt he'll still be alive-" Sam said to her meekly but she cut him off.
"No, not Nick. He wouldn't go down so easily." She stated firmly. "So, are you gonna help me?"
"That depends." Dean said and hopped off his chair to cross his arms in front of her, tensing his jaw as he realized despite being 6'0 they were almost the same height, with only a few inches between them. "We're not going to lug you around if we have to watch your back all the time-" He said and was cut off by Sarah suddenly bending her arms back and flinging her wrists out, revealing retracted two blades attached to the inside cuff of her jacket sleeves and ready to slide into her hands.
"They're pure silver, sanctified too. I've got three more in my boots." She said and cocked her head as if to say: "That enough for you?"
"Ok," Dean said and backed away slightly. "Remind me never to give you a hug." He said and she reset the blades with a smile.
"So," Sam said as he stepped off his chair and folded his laptop and the journal under his arm. "We've tracked it down to a house a few miles from here, that seems to be where everything dries up the most anyway. The residents are complaining even the plumbing doesn't work - at all." He said as he led the way through the tables to the diner's doors. "Seems like a good place to start. We were talking about it just as you came in actually."
"Really?" Sarah remarked. "Then it just naturally morphed into Askrechi and werewolves getting horny?" She asked acerbically and Dean laughed.
"Well actually Sam had a girlfriend who..." He said, smirking to himself, then stopped as he realised neither were taking the change in subject encouragingly. "Never mind," he said and smiled tightly as he pushed a chair out of Sarah's way and she went ahead with a very brief nod of thanks.
"Let's go find Nick!" He said under his breath in a ridiculously perky English accent and Sam digged him in the ribs as he also took advantage of Dean clearing the path.
"Is all that stuff about the rain stopping true then?" Sarah asked as they were nearing the door..
"Sure, in a 30-mile radius it hasn't rained since last month. Didn't you notice when you arrived? Even the trees are dying." Sam replied.
"Well speaking as someone who grew up in a place that's grey and raining two thirds of the year, I thought it was pretty normal." Sarah replied bitingly and reached for the door but Sam got there before her and held it open.
"You've never been to America before?" He asked in surprise.
"No, England's always had more than enough haunted houses for me, so why leave?" Sarah asked rhetorically and went through, shielding her eyes with her hand from the sudden sunlight.
Dean gave Sam a disparaging look but suddenly looked back at Sarah when she started to go left instead of right, where the Impala was parked in the diner's small parking lot.
"Hey where you going? The car's right over here." Dean said and indicated their car with a swish of both his arms.
"I've already got a car." Sarah replied coolly and Dean's jaw fell slack as she walked over to a shiny, bright blue BMW sports car parked next to the kerb, with a black roof higher than the Impala's low one.
"You've got to be kidding me." He muttered and Sam broke into a grin next to him.
"I got it imported all the way from England, no way am I leaving it behind." Sarah said and patted the bonnet fondly. "I'll follow you." She said and Dean started spluttering.
"Oh I'm going with her, she's actually got a roof!" Sam grinned, as the times he'd banged his head on the roof of Dean's beloved car were countless, and started walking towards it before Dean caught his arm and spun him around.
"Get in the car." He muttered darkly and stalked over to the Impala.
"Ok!" Sam obliged with a chuckle and his hands raised as Sarah watched them from the drivers seat with some amusement.
Dean started up his car manually and Sarah beeped her horn at him impatiently as hers was already running. Dean gritted his teeth as he backed up and Sam grinned.
"Look man if you're upset because she trumped your-" He started.
"Just shut up." Dean muttered and Sam pressed his lips together tightly, trying not to break into another grin.
They arrived at the house twenty minutes later, they could have there much sooner if it wasn't for Dean and Sarah trying to out-speed eachother, resulting in Dean missing the turning and trying to casually turn back without letting Sarah know they'd gone the wrong way.
"Well that was interesting." Sam said lightly as they pulled up to the pavement in front of the house and he got out. Sarah parked a notable distance behind them and got out to find that they'd changed into blue overalls on the way.
"Wow." She said as she walked up to meet them and they all stared at the house. It was a normal-looking nice house. Blue vinyl siding panels, two stories, front-slanting grey-slated roof, a porch with flawless white wooden steps up to it, white-framed rectangular windows and an impeccable front lawn with a pin-straight path up it, framed by various vegetation on the edges of the lawn. Which all happened to be completely bone-dry and dead, with only a few sturdy evergreens holding out.
"You think this is the right place?" She remarked as she nudged a blade of brown grass with the toe of her boot.
"Let's find out." Sam said and led the way up to the front porch with Dean.
"Watch and learn, blondie." Dean said and Sarah stepped back, raising her hands with a smile as Sam knocked on the door.
A respectable-looking man in his fifties with receding but neatly-combed dark grey hair and a blue sweater answered the door.
"Hi, I'm Harry, this is Ben." Dean introduced themselves swiftly before he could begin to say anything and pointed to the name-tags on their overalls. "We're from Lawrence and Sons plumbing company, we've come about the call you made about your water not coming through?" He reminded the man and he raised his head as he remembered.
"If you broke it we can fix it!" Dean twisted the company's catchphrase with a dazzling smile and the man laughed weakly, not finding it funny in the least. Sam kicked Dean's ankle as subtly as he could, flashing an apologetic smile when the man looked at him.
"It's about time you came, we made that call a week ago-" The man said and was about to let them in when he suddenly noticed Sarah. "But who's this?" He asked and the brothers looked over at her and her casual, non-plumber clothes blankly. Dean began to stall with "Uhh"s as they both came up with nothing and Sarah rolled her eyes, taking matters into her own hands.
"Ellen Mirren, waterworks specialist." She introduced herself with a business-like smile and held out her hand, ushering Sam and Dean into the house with her other hand. He instinctively shook it before he could register was going on. "We've had a lot of complaints like yours in the area recently and we want to crack down on it before it begins to spread." She said as she followed them into the house's wooden-floored and white-plastered hall, decorated with a few framed pictures and healthy potted plants, and pivoted on her heel to face him.
"I hope you do, this is atrocious, we only bought the house last month! Mary and I are going to her mother's house if this doesn't clear up soon-" He ranted as he gained his footing in the conversation, not doubting for a moment that she wasn't who she said she was.
"I can assure you that won't be necessary Mr...?" Sarah asked.
"Clark. Gordon Clark." He replied and she smiled.
"Well, Mr Clark, if you can just tell us where your boiler is we'll be right out of your hair." Dean butted in, wanting to get the job back under his control now that Sarah had got herself in.
"It's in the basement, the door's under the stairs over there..." Mr Clark said and pointed to the white staircase lining the left wall.
"We'll get to work then." Dean smiled tightly and headed over to the door with Sam.
Seeing no other reason to keep talking to Mr Clark, Sarah gave him a nod and followed them down the thin stairway down to the dank basement, closing the door behind her.
"I was impressed until you forgot about me." Sarah said scornfully as they reached the bottom and looked around at the surprisingly clean basement. It had plastered white walls and apart from dozens of boxes and abandoned items scattered around there were no telling signs of a resident demon, or where one could possibly hide.
Dean shuffled around awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Well you weren't part of the plan... Besides you handled yourself pretty well." He justified and determinedly examined the piping lining the walls going from the boiler to the stairs.
Sarah let out a short laugh. "So what now?" She asked as she watched them follow the pipes and Dean pulled out an old, modified black walkman from inside of his overalls and began running it over the pipes."EMF." He said and waggled it in the air at her, then frowned as it beeped when it moved over her.
"Electromagnetic Field Meter?" She asked with a grin. "Primitive, but solid. Nice retro look." She said patronisingly as she pulled out her own sleek silver one from her back pocket, easily mistakable for a phone.
"If there's anything affecting the water, chances are it'll be in the pipes, the EMF'll pick it up." Sam said before they could start having a go at eachother.
Sarah nodded at the rational theory and stepped back towards the stairs. "Looks like you've got it covered here so-"
"Hold on, this thing's going crazy over you." Dean said and proved his point by waving it in her face, making it beep and the needle vibrate like crazy.
"Yeah I tend to do that to EMFs." Sarah said and batted it away in annoyance. "Not surprising when a demon leaves a part of it inside you." She said irritably and backed away. "I'll get out of your way and check upstairs, it'll go back to normal when I'm out of range." She said and the brothers exchanged startled looks.
"There a story behind those eyes?" Dean asked.
"Yeah." She replied bluntly and turned around, not considering even for a second on elaborating.
"The pipes will be in the bottom of the walls-" Sam started.
"I know the basic layout of a house, thank you!" Sarah shot over her shoulder as she went up the stairs.
Sam looked back at Dean as she went out of sight and he held his right hand in the air, shaking it limply and blew his cheeks out with a grin.
She started with the hall but the needle on her EMF didn't even twitch. The kitchen was occupied by Mrs Clark cleaning enthusiastically along to Michael Buble, so she went into a room to the left of the front door instead. It was the room that made up most of the house you could see from the street. Painted a dull, dusky blue with the same wooden flooring as the hall, it was pretty featureless apart from a white sofa, coffee table, flatscreen TV and a few potted plants in the corners of the room.
She got to work and made her way across the room half-bent over, holding her EMF as close to the bottom of the wall as she could without undignifying herself by crawling. The consistency of the beeps didn't change from the slow, once-per-second pace as she went across the room but when she reached halfway she stopped and crinkled her nose at an odd smell like rotten eggs coming from a door in a nook at the other end of the room. Judging by the criss-cross gauze cover that hang over the door's window it led outside, and the homeowners were used to the smell.
She sniffed again and shrugged, she wasn't exactly foreign to the stink of blocked drains herself, and carried on scanning.
Mr Clark then walked in, saw her bent-over and scanning the wall, and decided against whatever he was going to say. He moved around the room huffing and hmming, looking out of the windows determinedly or rearranging the leaves of the banana plant for no reason whatsoever. Sarah didn't look around but she followed the sounds of his attempts to look like he was there for a purpose intently, and tried to estimate he time it would take for him to give up the pretence and talk to her.
It took about 46 seconds.
"So," He started casually and leant back against the sofa in an entirely unnatural way. "You're a specialist huh?" He asked and she groaned inwardly. If one more person tried to chat her up...
"Funny, I thought if they're bringing the specialists out you would have gone to the Morris' house first. The poor family haven't had running water for a month." He said and she blushed, wincing awkwardly as her arrogant assumption was proved wrong.
"And you haven't?" She asked slowly, this wasn't what she'd expected.
"No, it's just been in the past week." Mr Clark replied, unaware of her embarrassment, and her chagrin faded into dismay as she realised it wasn't likely she'd find Nick or the demon here.
"Where would I find the Morrises?" She asked and laughed awkwardly to hide her odd lack of local knowledge. "I wasn't really briefed on the area..."
"They're over on Red Pine Ridge, big farm at the top of the town surrounded by loads of trees, can't miss it." He informed and she nodded her thanks. She started to go but turned around at the last minute and smiled awkwardly again.
"Mr Clark, you wouldn't happen to have a blocked drain outside do you?" She asked and he sighed inevitably.
"You've noticed the smell have you?" He asked rhetorically. "No, all the drains are around the other side of the house. We've tried to block the smell," he nodded at the cover over the window, "but it keeps getting through. We just gave up and don't come in here much." He said and she nodded, that explained the bareness of the room.
"Haven't you had it checked out?" She asked.
"Well you're the plumbers!" He said and she laughed clumsily after a beat, cursing herself for forgetting her own disguise.
"We'll try and check it out." She said and walked back into the hall to find Sam and Dean. "Uh...Harry!" She called and faltered as she tried to remember Sam's fake name. "Er, Bob? Goddamn... Peter Parker..." She mumbled to herself as she failed and spun around when Mr Clark suddenly spoke.
"I think they went upstairs." He said and she smiled at him tightly, praying he hadn't heard that.
"Thanks." She almost hissed and escaped before she could muck up again.
She found them at the corner of the stairs where the level stayed the same until it changed in direction. Dean was waving his EMF in front of the small window looking out onto the garden.
"You guys found anything?" She asked as she came up to them. Sam was about to say "no" but Dean frowned and jerked as the EMF started beeping frantically when he moved it to his right. He turned around to point it out to them but stopped himself as he saw Sarah and realised it was just responding to her.
"Here, try mine." Sarah said almost kindly and tossed him hers. Dean caught it and ran it over the wall, where the beeps unsurprisingly remained even.
"How come yours doesn't go all funny on you?" He asked as it continued to stay even.
"Mine's smarter, and wasn't made in the 90s in an overreaching little boy's back bedroom." Sarah retorted and bit her tongue, it was harsh even for her.
"Ouch." Dean replied, unperturbed by the comment, and continued scanning.
"And I programmed it to ignore my signature." She mumbled and Sam perked up.
"You good at this stuff?" He asked and she shook her head.
"Just enough to get by, I knew someone who was though." She said and Dean jumped onto the hint.
"So, if you knew our dad your family must be hunters right?" Dean asked tentatively but she was in no mood for co-operating.
"My family's dead." She informed him bluntly.
"Oh, we're sorry to hear that." Sam said but with a stressed undertone directed at his brother to be more respectful.
"It was a long time ago." Sarah shrugged and Dean gave up scanning with a sigh.
"Nothing." He informed them as he threw the silver EMF back to Sarah and she pocketed it.
"We didn't find anything anywhere else either, in the basement or the second floor." Sam informed her. "Whatever it is, it isn't in the house-" He said and was cut off as everything suddenly went pitch black around them and a great roar drowned out all other sound.
It was like the beating wings of a thousand birds and a raging inferno of fire all at the same time.
Sarah stumbled back to support herself on the railings as the sound was almost overpoweringly deafening, then in a matter of seconds it was gone and the light snapped back.
Dean immediately pressed himself against the window but whatever it was was gone, and the rest of the house blocked all sight of the direction it had gone in. He did however notice a dark, large shed at the bottom of the garden. And it gave him the shivers.
"What the hell was that?" Sarah gasped and looked at the window too, but there was nothing to be seen.
"I don't know, but I've got a feeling whatever we were looking for isn't here anymore." Sam replied and sure enough, Mrs Clark's exalted cry came from the kitchen: "The water's back on, Gordon it's working!"
They all rushed down the stairs and poked their heads around the kitchen doorway to see the sink taps running clean and pure.
"Whatever you did, it worked. Thank you!" Mr Clark began to thank them from behind but Dean wasn't interested and cut him off.
"Mr Clark, that shed in your garden, have you ever used it?" He asked and Mr Clark threw him an absurd look.
"Oh no, I haven't even been in! Mary and I aren't gardeners." Mr Clark replied assuringly.
"Yeah, I can see that." Dean muttered under his breath as he examined the Clarks' perfectly neat appearances.
"We've been meaning to get it knocked down but with this water thing I haven't got round to it. There's something about it, just gives you the creeps, you know?" Mr Clark continued and Dean smiled impatiently.
"Yeah well do you mind if we take a look inside? We think it might have something to do with the, uh, plumbing." He said and Sam and Sarah looked at him even more puzzledly.
"But the problem's fixed-" Mr Clark protested in confusion.
"Still, we'd like to take a look. Just to make sure it doesn't come back." Dean assured him and he shrugged.
"Ok, I'll open it for you." Mr Clark said, grabbed a key from a row of hooks next to the kitchen doorway, and lead them through to the room Sarah had scanned before. "We do?" Sam asked Dean as they followed him and Sarah listened in intently.
"I don't know, it's just a hunch." Dean shrugged and Sam considered it.
"Well it isn't in the range of the house, the EMF wouldn't pick it up..." Sam mused quietly out of Mr Clark's range of hearing.
"And there was that smell coming from the door to the garden." Sarah butted in. "I thought it was a blocked drain, but there aren't any drains on this side of the house. It was like really bad eggs or..."
"Sulphur." The brothers finished darkly and followed Mr Clark with even more intent.
"Huh, so you fixed that smell too." Mr Clark said as he opened the door to the garden and sniffed the clean air. "What was it, blocked pipes or something?" He asked and Sarah just nodded weakly.
"Well, there it is." Mr Clark said as they walked out onto the dead, brown lawn.
The garden was an average oblong shape. Neatly cut, various small trees and an equally neat hedge separating it from the other properties next to the house. It would have been quite pretty when it wasn't dead, but right at the edges of the garden some green life still remained.
Then there was the shed. It was the only thing in the garden other than vegetation and an abandoned deck chair. It was larger than the usual kind and more square than rectangular. The wooden panels looked like a dark mahogany but the closer Sarah looked she saw they were actually black. A small willow tree hung over the door, its elongated leaves were shrivelled up and a pale, crackly, brown like the rest of the tree but, no. The closer she looked the tree became black too. An empty darkness seemed to pulse out from the shed so much that the only thing she could focus on was the dark shed, drawing her in. Even the clear blue sky turned grey. The darkness became so extreme it was almost suffocating, then she blinked and it was gone.
The shed was a normal dark mahogany, everything else a dried-out brown with remaining tinges of green, the sky blue. Sarah stopped on the grass to clear her head and judging from Sam and Dean's expressions, they'd just experienced the same thing.
"Uh, Mr Clark?" Dean called out to the unaffected respectable home-owner who was just unlocking the shed, making him look back around at them. "Why don't you let us get on with our work now, we know what we're doing." He said at an attempt to get him out of the way and winced as he swung the door open, revealing a dark red ritualistic candle behind it.
"Oh, sure," Mr Clark replied, still without looking back into the shed. "I'll just latch it open for you..." He said and reached into the the space between the top of the doorway and the roof to pull down the doorstop, then he froze. "Oh my god." He stuttered and staggered back as he saw the inside of the shed.
Sarah, Sam and Dean rushed forward to look inside and all exchanged looks when they saw it. What couldn't be cleared out was pushed right to the back of the shed in a heap, leaving the grey cement floor completely clear for the huge black summoning circle burnt into it, surrounded by seven blood red candles and scattered herbs.
"Woah." Dean said simply, oblivious to the panic attack Mr Clark was going into behind them.
"I-I'm calling the cops!" Mr Clark stammered and ran back to the house, only just managing to keep his arms from flailing like a little girl's.
The brothers looked back at him grimly as their time was now limited but Sarah dived right in.
"Looks like good ol' Mr Clark isn't so perfect after all." Dean said with a raised eyebrow as they walked around and took in the circle.
"Come on, you can't seriously believe he did this? The guy has obviously never seen anything like it in his life! Plus he thought a garden shed would have an inside latch." Sarah scoffed and Dean reluctantly accepted her reasoning.
"Maybe the previous owner?" Sam suggested but Sarah shook her head.
"These markings, they're not drawn onto the ground, they're burnt into it. No human could do that." Sarah said as she traced her finger along the indented summoning circle and the symbols inside it.
"It could have been the wife." Dean suddenly suggested and they looked up at him incredulously. "You know, with a blowtorch and a fetish for demonic candles, anyone could do it." He said and Sarah rolled her eyes.
"Do you see a blowtorch around here? They don't look like they'd even know what one is if you told them." Sarah retorted. "A blowtorch couldn't do this anyway, it's too deep and accurate. And I'd like to see you even make a circle this deep with a box of matches in 24 hours!" She said, cutting off what he was about to say. "In fact..." She said and frowned as she ran her finger through the gouged circle that fit her fingertip perfectly, and then finished with an upward slope just next to the point where the circle had been started, like a finger pulling out of a trail of paint.
"What?" Dean asked and she shook her head.
"Nothing." She said and stood up, stepping out of the circle. "But whoever did this, it wasn't them. They're just normal." She said finally and Dean sucked his teeth in.
"I don't know, something about them just feels...wrong." He shuddered and Sam grinned.
"He can't stand normal. Lawns terrify him." Sam said teasingly to Sarah and Dean wagged his finger at him.
"And normal people mean it when they say they're gonna call the cops." Dean said and held the door open. "I don't think we're going to find anything else here so..." He said and they filed out of the small shed.
They walked up the stretch of dead garden between the house and the shed and Sarah took the lead.
"According to Mr Clark there's a farm on the hill overlooking the town that hasn't had any running water for a month, I'd bet you anything that's where the demon's gone." Sarah informed them, not even bothering to look back at them as they came up to the 4 ft white picket fence blocking the way between the house and the green garden fence.
"If we head off now we can be there before the police even think to call the plumbing company to look for us." She continued assumptuously and Dean suddenly stopped in his tracks.
"Woah woah woah," he said in alarm. Sarah turned around and frowned at the distrustful looks they were giving her. "We're not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on." He said and pointed back at the shed. "We've never seen anything like that before, or anything this powerful. A demon trying to summon another demon? Not to mention the whole black-out inferno thing. And last I checked demons cause freak weather, not absorb it." He said and she sighed impatiently as she looked to Sam for support, but he agreed with his brother.
"The police are gonna be here any minute-" She said, looking back at the fence desperately.
"Then you can make it quick." Dean replied firmly with crossed arms and she huffed in annoyance again.
"Fine, we don't know what it is." She replied testily and they listened intently. "It's been haunting us for years. Ever since we first started hunting, we'd finish a job one night and it'd be just standing there, watching us. By the time we managed to react it'd be gone. The, uh, "visits" were never consistent, could be weeks, months or years until we saw it again but it always came back."
"Didn't you try tracking it?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, but it took years to learn the signs. And even when we did the trail just vanished hours later, so we gave up." Sarah replied impertinently and restlessly shifted her weight. "We hadn't seen it for seven months when the signs showed up here. We saw a chance to finally hunt this thing down so we took it. It got Nick when we stopped at the side of the road to fill the car's water tank."
"What do you mean it got him?" Dean asked.
"I mean it got him." Sarah snapped back. "I went to get the water out of the back seats and everything went pitch black. All I could hear was that racket like wings in a fire we heard before, when it cleared Nick was gone and there was no trace of the demon anywhere. Funny thing is, it's never tried to hurt us before. This thing's had more than ten opportunities to kill us and it never has, or tried to speak with us. It doesn't seem to need to possess anyone either, every time we've seen it it's always been in its own corporeal form." She informed them and they exchanged alarmed looks.
"Well that's unusual." Sam remarked and she shrugged indifferently.
"Now I don't know about you but I don't want my face recorded in a dead-end case that'll be written off as a teenage prank or non-existent demonic cult, so-" She emphasised and led the way over to the fence, which she swung over with ease.
After a moment Sam and Dean followed her and picked up the pace to catch up.
"Well if we're going house-hunting in the forest, we'll need to top up on gas first." Dean said to her, unexpectedly accepting her story, and she smiled slightly to herself as they headed to their cars.
Chapter 2
They pulled up at the town's gas station ten minutes later. It was just around the corner from the centre of town, a small park, a city hall and the usual high street shops opposite the police station.
Dean got to the only vacant pump first and had parked the Impala further up the street by the time Sarah got her turn on the pumps.
"We've got somethin' we need to pick up in town," Dean called to her as he walked backwards with Sam in the direction of the police station. "Meet you outside the city hall in fifteen?"
"Sure. take your time, not like any lives are at stake." She called back dryly as she awkwardly tried to wrangle the petrol pump's wire over to the left side of her car. Dean wryly gave her two thumbs up as he watched her battle with the wire, unseen by her, and turned around just in time to turn around the corner of the street with his brother.
"You think she's telling the truth?" Sam asked when he was sure they were out of sight and ducked under a glass rain canopy hanging from the police station.
"Let's find out." Dean said and pointedly adjusted the collar of his plumber overalls, making sure the name tag and company logo was clearly displayed.
Sam frowned as they came up to the entrance of the police station and suddenly "Ohhh"'d as he realised Dean's train of thought, then did the same.
They strode into the station and gave the girl at the desk their best trustworthy smiles.
"Hi." Dean said smoothly and she looked up at them blankly. Sam smiled down at her too, but didn't get a response either. Dean cleared his throat awkwardly as his wooing attempts had failed and she raised her eyebrows and jerked her head out as she waited for him to tell her what he was here for.
"We're from Lawrence and Sons Plumbing, heard you've been having some problems with the pipes back in the records room, mind if we take a look?" He asked and the receptionist twisted her biro on the desk as she scrutinised the name tags on their overalls.
"It's been happening all over town so we're hoping to crack down on it." Sam added helpfully as the receptionist scowled even further at their name tags. They were considering making a run for it when she suddenly patted herself down, scrabbled around the desk and pulled out a shelf below it to grab a pair of chunky pink and black glasses, which she shoved onto her nose.
"Oh, sure! Sorry, worse than a bat without these." She grinned a little breathlessly and Sam looked around them in relief, the tension they hadn't even realised was their released from the brothers' shoulders.
"Don't worry about it." Dean smiled and she shuffled around from the back of the desk.
"I'll take you right through." She invited and punched the code into a metallic keypad next to the heavy-looking blue door at the end of the hall.
"I sure hope you can do something about the air conditioning in there, fan hasn't been working for days." She grumbled as she led them through without a question. Sam smiled at her tightly as he quickly moved out of the way of an officer coming up the other way and Dean deliberately looked down at the cuff of his sleeve nearest to the wall.
"Well here we are." She said as she led them through another door, down three stairs and they were in the records room. Filled with boxes and boxes of old files, papers, and books stacked up on eachother, on tables or on the metal shelves making a maze out of the room.
"I'll leave you to it." She said as she walked back to the door. "Just don't tell anyone I brought you down here ok?" She asked quickly as she was about to close the door behind her.
"We won't be long." Sam assured her and she nodded.
"Ok." She smiled and she was gone. Sam immediately scooted over to one of the two computers in the room while Dean blew out his cheeks.
"Whew, plumbers get everywhere man! I mean apart from the fact that chick actually thought air conditioning is to do with the plumbing, we should do this more often, if only we didn't look like really creaped-up janitors." Dean remarked, looking pointedly at the large gap between the leg of Sam's overalls and his feet.
"Dude, these were the biggest ones there! And they're really baggy around my stomach." Sam protested and Dean grinned.
"Yeah, well, you got anythin' on Miss Sarcasm yet?" He asked and leafed through a few piles of records and newspapers on the table nearest to the steps.
"Well she said she's never been to America before so I doubt they'd have any records on her..." Sam reminded him dubiously but continued typing and scrolling anyway. A new page flashed up and he frowned. "Take a look at this." He said simply and Dean went over.
His eyebrows raised as he looked over Sam's shoulder. "Well well, who'd have thought it?" He said and they glanced at eachother knowingly.
She was sitting on one of the several stone benches facing the city hall before the level of the ground dropped with three sets of wide steps to match the rest of the town. With no back it was more of a stone rectangle, but it was pleasant anyway. The sky was clear and sunny, a few little children were playing on the stretch of grass separating the bottom of the steps from the road and the other buildings, while their parents strolled alongside on the path. As well as a few older ones who were probably skiving off school. It struck her as a bit thick as they were right in front of the police station, she'd never have made that mistake as a kid.
But no cops were in sight, the birds were singing and people were going about their day-to-day lives. It could be peaceful, if her heart hadn't stopped beating at 100 mph ever since Nick was taken.
She sat as far back as she could on the bench and swung her legs like she once did back home, when they weren't worried about demons. She scuffed the toe of her boot into the grey-slated ground roughly as she was reminded of why she was here, abruptly stopping the swinging motion she'd started, and bit her lips together as hard as she could.
She looked up as the unmistakable frames of Sam and Dean emerged from the doors of the police station and she pulled herself back to the front of the bench, ready to stand. Their expressions weren't exactly the ones she expected, Dean determined and Sam doubtful, so she stayed put for the moment.
"We looked you up, Sarah Elizabeth Bowen." Dean announced as they approached her, putting stress on the posh-sounding middle name she hadn't told them about, and she looked up at him indifferently, the surprise only lasting for a second.
"You know, just to make sure you weren't going to stab us in the back or anything." He continued in an exaggerated friendly tone. "You lied to us." He added, throwing away the false tone for a serious one and she raised her eyebrows unconcernedly.
"I did?" She asked, more interested in what they'd supposedly found out about her than afraid, she hadn't lied to them after all, just not said anything altogether. Apart from one thing, but that was hardly going to be on record.
"You told us your family were dead, but your dad's still alive." Dean informed her bluntly with crossed arms and her eyes flashed, her composure going completely out of her control for one short moment.
"But he's dying." Sam butted in more gently, realising that she might not even know. "He was admitted into Tameside Hospital 5 days ago, and it doesn't sound good." He informed her with an apologetic smile and Dean turned from frowning at his brother to Sarah as she unexpectedly shrugged.
"Doesn't matter, he's dead to me anyway." She told them and stood up to go. "He's the one who told me to never come back. So, if you got what you wanted..." She said and started to go in the direction of their cars but stopped as the brothers continued to frown at her. Sam especially, as her words had just echoed his to Dean over a year ago.
"Look, Sarah," Sam started understandingly and she frowned as she tried to figure out where he was going. "I once felt the same way about my dad too but if-" He said and she don't believe suddenly laughed incredulously.
"I don't believe this." She grinned in disbelief and looked up to the sky.
"What?" Sam asked, both of the brother's faces were now the picture of puzzlement. Sarah laughed to herself again, took a few steps away from them with her hand in her hair, and spun around again to face them.
"Ok, I lied to you." She admitted openly, with an almost undetectable tone of hysteria underneath her unusually frank manner. "About how I met your dad." She said and they frowned. "My dad's a priest, village church and all that crap. He traded with hunters for awhile and your dad came over from America this one winter specially to get this artifact, never told me what it was. You probably don't remember it but his flight back was delayed by the weather. He could have driven down to London but he agreed to stay in Millbrook for a few days just to teach me a few tricks for a few days 'cause no one else would. And in those 3 days he was more of a father to me than mine had ever been in fourteen years. I mean, I'd heard about the story about your mum. But when she died your dad focused on training and protecting you, and in those three days the only thing he worried about was you two. When my mum died, the only thing my dad focused on was drink and religion, and he blamed it all on me. We argued and disagreed about everything, religion, hunting, if I was even allowed to go out other than to school. When I finally got out of that damn house I never looked back." She told them and let out a short bark of laughter, ridiculing the irony of her own freedom. "I've hunted with Nick for 7 years now, same apartment, never straying from the same area for long. And now I have to hunt down the most powerful demon I've ever come across who's taken the only person I've ever relied on in a place with spaces of nothing larger than my own county? I'm sorry if I've been a bit harsh but, I'm bloody terrified." She admitted and her voice finally cracked. She sniffed and smiled, breathing in deeply as she tried to stop her eyes from turning into taps and Sam gently put his hand on her shoulder.
"We're going to find him." He said to her firmly, his eyes full of sincerity. Sarah nodded up at him and cleared her throat to compose herself, then Dean decided to give his supportive input.
"That wasn't so hard was it?" He asked. She tried to give him a scathing look but broke into a smile despite herself.
"I'm really sorry about your dad by the way, he was a great guy, to more people than you know." She said sympathetically and Sam smiled back politely but Dean awkwardly shrugged it off.
"Yeah well, that's enough heart-to-heart for now. Come on, if we set off now we'll find the farm before it gets dark." He said and determinedly headed off in the direction of the street they'd parked their cars in.
Sam shrugged at her helplessly at his brother's attitude as they strode after him and she smirked as she remembered something John Winchester had said to her all those years ago about Dean.
Chapter 3
They found the farm pretty easily, but then it was hard not to. It was a beautiful place surrounded by acres and acres of red and orange-leaved pine trees. As Sarah followed Sam and Dean's Impala up the road to the farm her hands were turned orange and gold by the light reflecting through the canopy of leaves above them. Then, as soon as they turned onto the last stretch of the road the red and orange halo around them abruptly ended. Both cars slowed down as they took in the anomaly around them. Every single tree was a pale, dead brown. The leaves were brown and so were the trunks that had been white only a few yards back. Everything was dead.
"Either this is the place or they have a zombie apocalypse in their basement." Dean remarked to his brother as he awkwardly peered over the steering wheel to try and find something that was alive, but gave up empty-handed.
They drove up to the big, two-storey farmhouse and parked just before the drive came up to its front door. The Winchesters got out and Dean gave Sam a strange look as they noticed Sarah had yet again parked a considerable distance behind them, just when the road evened out. Sam just shrugged.
She started jogging towards them and Dean shook his head as they circled around to the Impala's trunk to delve around for something suitable in the hidden weapon compartment.
"Hey." She huffed as she caught up with them and Dean ogled at her jacket-less body.
"Finally decided to let some sun touch that albino skin of yours?" He asked and she rolled her eyes at him.
"It's like 30 degrees here, how do you cope?" She asked in genuine wonder and Sam took the opportunity to wind her geographically naive self up.
"It's only fall. This is pretty much an evening breeze." He said purely deadpan and she was silent for a good few seconds as she tried to figure out if he was pulling her leg or actually telling the truth.
"Depeche Mode?" Dean asked skeptically, reading the faded logo on her chest.
Sarah looked down at it and looked back at him perplexedly. "Yeah, so?" She asked and he smiled back at her suspiciously cheerily.
"Oh, nothin'." He replied and she scowled as she could swear she heard him mumble something distinctly like "Overrated emo synthpop." Before she could reply with a suitably hostile reply, however, the trunk they were rifling through caught her eye.
"Impressive." She said as she looked at the contents of their trunk, deciding to just change the subject altogether. "You guys have it so much easier." She said as she enviously watched Dean pick up a revolver. "We have to improvise with water bombs filled with salt." She said dryly and they both cracked smirks.
"Wait, you're just going to go in there, guns blazing?" She asked incredulously as she realised they were equipping the guns they were picking up.
"You're not in England anymore." Dean informed her as he stuffed one down the waistband of his jeans underneath his overalls.
"There's a family in there!" Sarah protested.
"And so's the demon." Sam replied.
"I don't know if you noticed but this kinda seems like the place, it's turned the entire farm into unholy ground." Dean said pointedly and spread his arm out to all the dead trees around them.
"Ok fine." Sarah gave in reluctantly and stepped back as Sam slammed down the trunk. "We'll have to search everywhere, this thing could be hiding anywhere, and it's a big house." She said as they stepped up onto the path and began walking to the small deck in front of the house.
They passed a large stretch of -dead- grass leading to the rest of the plot and an equally large barn, but they didn't even turn their heads as they headed to the two sets of 5 steps leading up to the deck. Sam and Dean both went up the closest one at the same time so Sarah scooted around to the steps on the opposite side, leaving her furthest from the door when they lined up next to Dean in front of it.
Sam hesitated as he reached out to press the very crisp white bell button, mounted on a gold plate so shiny he could see his face in it. "I'll do the talking. We can't afford to screw up this time." Sam said firmly and his brother looked at him with a wounded expression.
"What makes you think we screwed up last time? We got in, didn't we?" Dean protested, but Sam had already rang the bell and he cut himself off as the door opened.
A brown-haired man in his late thirties answered. He wore a checked red shirt over a grey t-shirt and everyday blue jeans. His lower face was covered with a slight fuzz and there were smile creases around his eyes. The side of Sarah's mouth twitched up, he was everything she imagined a proper dad would be when she was a kid.
"Hi, Mr Morris?" Sam greeted him and they all stood up straight as they tried to look official. "We're from the plumbing company, Lawrence and Sons, we're here about the problems you've been having with your water for the past month-" Sam said but Mr Morris was already looking exasperated, so Dean cut in.
"I'm Harry," Dean introduced himself with a smile, completely disregarding Sam's order to stay quiet. "This is Bob and Ellie, Waterworks Specialist." He said and Sarah looked at him incredulously. Mr Morris had already turned to look at her as Dean pointed her out so she smiled at him as professionally as she could. He looked dubiously at her very unprofessional band t-shirt and she tried to shoot daggers at Dean as well as she could without moving her head. He just smiled happily to himself and Sam breathed in through his nose sharply as he tried to keep his cool.
Mr Morris frowned at them puzzledly and shook his head to clear himself of it as he got back to why they were here.
"Look, we don't need any more people tramping around our home." He informed them and Sam shifted restlessly. "The last 5 people who came round here all found nothing and blamed it on the weather, and that's exactly what you're gonna do too so I'll save you the time."
Sam quickly spoke up before he could shut the door on them. "Please, Mr Morris, we've almost figured it out. If we could just take a look around, I swear we won't take long."
"And Ellie here is a specialist." Dean put in sincerely, solely to bring up his new nickname for her again. It took everything she had not to roll her eyes.
"We know the weather around here has been awful lately but your house hasn't been the only place affected by this. So the sooner we can determine the root of the problem the sooner we can, uh, satisfy our customers, before it spreads." Sarah said in her best professional voice and Mr Morris looked at them with less hostility and more hesitancy.
"Just twenty minutes." Sam assured him earnestly with big eyes and he sighed.
"Fifteen minutes, then you're gone." Mr Morris warned them in defeat and stood back to let them in.
"Thank you." Sam smiled in relief and lead the way into the spacious and oak-paneled hall.
Sarah looked at Sam like she'd just witnessed a rabbit take flight. Dean grinned as he went in past her and she looked at him desperately for an explanation as she followed.
"How did he do that?" She hissed to him as quiet and lowly as she could. "He was gonna slam the door in our face!"
"It's the eyes." Dean smirked with a shrug and she nodded in acceptance.
"Not something you inherited then." She said just loud enough for Sam to hear and he almost broke into a fit of laughter at Dean's expression of confusion and outrage as he realised what she just said.
"What's that?" Mr Morris asked as he caught the last mumbles of their conversation and Sarah smiled at him reassuringly.
"Nothing!" She said brightly and turned around again to face Sam and Dean as she stepped back towards Mr Morris. "You to go scan the ground floor, I've got to ask Mr Morris some questions." She said to them, trying to imply that she was trying to give them some time to use the EMFs, without making Mr Morris suspicious.
They understood her instantly and were turning around to go through the doorway behind them when she called out Dean's name.
"Take this," she said and threw him her silver EMF which he caught aptly. "You'll cover more ground quicker with two."
Dean nodded in thanks and they left. She swiveled around on her heel to face Mr Morris and smiled. "Do you think I could get a glass of water?" She asked as sweetly as she could after eyeing all the doors and corridors heading from the hall.
He nodded. "Sure." He said and led the way to the kitchen. She smiled as her suspicions were proved correct and he headed through the corridor at the top-right of the hall, well away from where Sam and Dean would be scanning.
Chapter 4
Sarah leaned back against the island of counters in the centre of the grey linoleum-floored kitchen. Mr Morris grabbed a glass from the flawless white-topped counters with wood the same colour as caramel lining the kitchen walls and filled it with water from one of many big 5 litre water bottles lined up next to eachother across the kitchen.
He handed her the glass and she took it gratefully. "So, you wanted to ask me some questions?" He asked just as she took a large gulp and she winced as she tied to "Mmm", swallow and put the glass down at the same time.
"Yes." She smiled as she regained control of her mouth and pushed the glass firmly out of her reach. "So, ah, how long has this been happening?" She asked, trying to think of questions a waterworks specialist would actually ask.
"A month, but shouldn't you already know that?" Mr Morris asked her suspiciously and the corners of her eyes tightened as she tried to think of an excuse.
"Yeah, I only arrived yesterday, too jet-lagged to really take any of it in." She laughed tightly and almost fainted in relief when he bought it.
"The accent, British, right?" He asked and she nodded with a feeble smile. "They flew you out just for a few plumbing problems?" He asked somewhat incredulously and she shrugged helplessly.
"That's my job! And if this turns out to be a widespread problem it could be disastrous for the plumbing companies." She said convincingly.
"Huh." Mr Morris said to himself and looked at her thoughtfully from the unused sink. "So how did a pretty girl like you get into something as dull as waterworks?" He asked and she laughed. It was a good question. "No offence." He added and she shook her head to shrug it off.
"Well it's all I've ever known, kinda the family business." She lied through her teeth this time but tried to still smile brightly to counter it.
"Well I can understand that." Mr Morris replied obscurely and wandered over to the window next to the sink, nudging even more water bottles out of the way into the space beneath the counter with his foot. Sarah gave him a small, polite smile that tightened her eyes and followed the collection of water bottles he'd just kicked away to an entire trail of them stored everywhere possible around the kitchen; she guessed there were at least thirty, and that was just in this room.
"Mr Morris," she started and he looked around at her obligingly. "Forgive me for asking," she laughed coyly. "But if your family has been affected by this for so long, why not just move? She asked and it was his turn to laugh wryly to himself.
"We did." He replied and she frowned at him uncertainly. "This farm was supposed to be the best thing that happened to us, our new life. This farm had been passed down in my family for generations until my coward of a grandfather gave it away gambling. My dad always wanted to get it back but he died before he could get the money. Then we finally got it three months ago but it took everything we had, I'm not just going to give up on it now and we'd have nowhere to go." He said firmly and her eyes widened in realisation.
"How many generations, exactly?" She asked fervently and he looked at her oddly. "Just curious." She added quickly and he shrugged.
"Hundreds of years, since the 1600s at least." He said and she nodded in interest.
"Well, that's all I wanted to know." She said with the pleasant business-smile plastered on her face and stood to go. Mr Morris stood uncertainly as he'd been prepared to be questioned for much longer.
"Do you mind if I have a look around?" She asked as she was edging towards the door anyway. "Just to check the layout of the pipes and stuff." She asked generally.
"Uh, sure." He stuttered, not finding a reason to say no, and she eagerly disappeared back to the hall where they'd started.
Sam and Dean weren't back yet so she surveyed the area as she tried to choose which way to go. The Winchesters already were covering the ground floor, leaving the wide, oak staircase.
She flexed her mouth and cheeks as she jogged up, stiff from all the perky smiling, and stopped as she turned the corner at the top to be presented with a hallway with eight closed doors leading off from it. There were three on the right wall with a semi-circle window separating them, one at the end, and three on the left wall with another semi-circle window inbetween.
She chose to go clockwise as quietly as she could, she had no EMF but she wasn't looking for anything supernatural. She knew the demon would be here somewhere; she was looking for Nick.
Up in someone's loft was a ridiculous place to look, or to keep someone, but just one tiny sign would have been enough for her. The first door she opened was just a storage room, then the master bedroom and then the laundry cupboard. She was about to go onto the two doors at the end of the hall when she heard a little gasp and a scuffle come from the first door on the right wall. She spun around on her heel immediately and frowned, the door wasn't entirely closed.
She walked up to it tentatively but quickly, placed her hand on the door to push it open and put her other on her lower thigh, ready to slide into her boot and whip out one of her knives.
She pushed the door open slowly and, fingers only a hairs breadth above the rim of her boot, peeked her head around the door only to find a little girl around the age of eight looking up at her nervously from her dolls. She had dark brown hair, black, rectangular glasses and sat in the middle of a round rainbow-coloured cord rug. This was her bedroom.
Sarah sighed exasperatedly at herself for thinking Nick might be up here and eased up. She moved around the gap in the door into the room so as not to alarm the girl further, only to find she had gone back to indifferently playing with her dolls.
"...Hello." She said in a friendly manner after a long pause but still the girl didn't look up.
"You're here to stop the noises, aren't you?" The girl asked in the innocent way only children can and Sarah looked at her in surprise. "I heard you talking with my dad." She explained and looked up at Sarah with big, watery green eyes magnified by her glasses. "So, are you?" She prompted.
"We're here to fix the water." Sarah stated clearly so the little girl didn't get any ideas and she smiled at her as all the memories of talking to children flooded back to her. "I'm Sarah. What's your name?" She asked in the fascinated, gentle tone used when talking to children.
"Sophie." The little girl replied and Sarah looked around her room in interest. It was painted a dusky heather with dark, rich wooden shelves and furniture the colour of chocolate that matched it perfectly. Glossy white curtains hung over the rectangular window facing the road up to the house and next to it was a bedside table and a single bed with a patched quilt in the corner.
"You have a very nice room Sophie." Sarah stated affectionately as she ran her finger over the bushy mane of a little, aqua, fuzzy horse sitting on the shelf next to the door. Sophie smiled tentatively back at her and she turned back to her, having gained her trust by being allowed to touch one of her toys.
"So," she started and crouched down on the balls of her feet to get down to her height. "What sort of noises have you been hearing?" She asked and Sophie shrugged, combing the long black hair of one of her dolls.
"Just like banging and scratching," she said and Sarah tensed up. "And then sometimes there was the whispering, but that's stopped now."
"And where did you hear these noises?" Sarah asked and Sophie looked up at her a little fearfully.
"They were coming from the basement, whenever I went down to get some water at night. Mom and dad said it's nothing, but it isn't, is it?" She asked.
"It's just the pipes. We'll fix them, you'll see. You won't hear the noises again after tonight." Sarah assured her with a smile and stood up to leave now that she'd gotten what she wanted. Then she stopped at the door and turned around again slowly.
"Your dad said other people have been around before, to fix the water." She started, testing to see if Sophie knew what she was talking about. She nodded and Sarah straightened up the tiniest amount as a flicker of hope crossed her eyes. "Did you ever see a guy about my age and height, black hair with a silly long fringe that keeps covering his eyes? Blue, eyes, uhh, a beige jacket with a turned-up collar and..." Sarah trailed off as she realised nothing she was saying was ringing a bell in Sophie's mind. The little girl shook her head and Sarah's shoulders sunk back down again.
"Ah well, nice to meet you Sophie." She said, trying to guise the disappointment in her voice, and left the room. Shutting the door behind her with a quiet click.
She slumped back against the door and closed her eyes, rubbing her hands over her face and brushing the strands of caramel hair away from her head.
But just because he isn't up here doesn't mean he couldn't be somewhere in the house, she thought to herself and straightened up again. But she kept her eyes closed. She could only see the swirling patterns against the dark red light filtering through her eyelids, but it all seemed to shake and thud. A familiar sucking boom deep in the recesses of her inner-ears from long ago. Vibrating at the base of her skull. Then after a hesitant lapse of movement she opened them, and everything was normal.
She breathed in sharply and pulled the edge of her t-shirt down firmly so it straightened out.
"It's always the basements!" She muttered to herself and shook her head as she headed back to the staircase.
Chapter 5
They had just come back into the hall through the second archway behind the stairs when Sarah started going down the stairs.
"Find anything?" She asked as she flitted down the last half and used the curved end of the banister to spin around to face them.
"Nothing, not even a flicker." Dean informed her glumly and threw back her EMF. She caught it easily but didn't pocket it.
"How about you, Mr Morris reveal anything?" Sam asked and she put her thumbs in her jeans' pockets.
"Nah, 'cept this place is old. Really old, been in the family for generations. And there's no way we're going to get them to leave." She told them and Sam sighed.
"But," she said with her finger in the air and started walking backwards to one of the panels of the wall next to the end of the stairs. Sam and Dean followed her with puzzled frowns as she flicked her EMF on and started scanning the wall. "Their little girl told me she'd been hearing noises down in the basement," she said and pulled the inside of a length of moulding on the wall, which then clicked and the entire panel swung inwards to reveal it was a door they hadn't noticed before. Dean raised his eyebrows but then looked over his shoulder as Sam hit his elbow as subtly as he could.
"Scratching, incoherent whispering, typical signs of a..." Sarah continued as she scanned the entrance but then trailed off as Dean frantically waved his hand across his neck at her. She frowned as she tried to figure out why he was telling her to stop but then a voice came from behind her:
"What are you doing?" It asked and Sarah turned around to see Mr Morris frowning at he silver EMF in her hand.
"Oh, er-" Sarah stumbled and saw in the corner of her eye that Sam and Dean were preparing to do a runner. "Just scanning for, um," she said and waved her hand in a circle like she'd forgotten the word. "Sulphur...in the pipes." She said finally and Mr Morris frowned at her. Dean looked at her in surprise with half-closed eyelids as he waited to see where she was going with it, while Sam looked a little impressed. "We think it could be the cause of the water problems everyone's been having, raw sulphur getting into the pipes and causing the water to evaporate. Which is why no one ever finds a problem in the pipes." Sarah explained smoothly now that she'd found her feet.
Dean looked at Mr Morris in an assured way, daring him to contradict that impressive lie, but he raised his eyebrow and crossed his arms at Sarah anyway.
"Really?" Mr Morris asked and she nodded warily, trying to keep up the confident business-smile but was internally scrambling to realise what she'd said wrong. "Because I don't believe you. I just rang your plumbing company." He said and alarm bells instantly went off in all three of their minds. "And they never sent anyone out, or have even heard of a waterworks specialist." He said and looked at Sarah in disgust. She pocketed her EMF nervously and he turned to Sam and Dean. "Oh and 'Harry' and 'Bob' are meaty middle-aged guys with hair-loss problems!" He cried cynically and Sam inwardly groaned while Dean flashed him an attempt at an apologetic grin and patted his full head of hair.
"Those miracle-cure commercials really work." He joked clumsily and Sarah rolled her eyes.
Mr Morris squinted at him menacingly and shook his head in repulse.
"Look, we don't mean you any harm, haven't stolen anything." Sam desperately tried to assure him with his empty hands in the air. Dean did the same and they tentatively tried to circle around him to get to Sarah and the door.
"You've got one chance to get out of my house before I call the cops. And I never want to see you again." Mr Morris spat.
"We're going, we're going." Sam repeated to him quietly and they all backed away to the door, not turning their back on him, and fled as soon as Dean twisted the doorknob.
Sam was the last out but they went in a flurry and Sarah firmly closed the door behind him. They went down the steps of the deck as fast as they could without running and Dean laughed a little hysterically.
"Now what?" She huffed as they walked down the path to Dean's Impala and Sam shrugged.
"Wait at the motel til it gets dark, then break back in." He said and Dean looked sideways at Sarah.
"Hey Sarah, d'you have someplace to stay?" Dean asked her slyly and she blinked. It hadn't even crossed her mind.
"No." She replied as they came up to the Impala and frowned suspiciously at the smug grin that broke out on his face.
"I suppose you'll have to wait it out with us then." He said and waggled his eyebrows at her, having finally found something he had and she didn't have better. She sighed as Dean unlocked his car and was about to mentally prepare herself for the long hours ahead in a motel room, when Dean suddenly noticed his tires.
"Son of a bitch!" He cursed as he stood back and realised the air in every single tire had been let out.
It was Sarah's turn to grin now. "And that's why you don't park right outside the house of a demon you're hunting!" She told them smugly, explaining why she always parked a distance away from them, and practically skipped towards her car. She then turned around to walk backwards so she could face them when saying: "Suppose you'll have to go in my car then." Gleefully paraphrasing Dean's smug comment to her.
Sam shrugged apologetically to his brother as Dean scowled, still looking around to see if he could see the person responsible for doing this, and started to walk towards Sarah.
She was just turning around towards her car when the sound of breaking glass blasted out from behind them and showered onto the ground as a huge fireball launched from the broken window towards the. They all instinctively ducked as the roaring ball of fire the size of a small car itself soared over their heads to land on Sarah's blue BMW. It was only Sam's quick reaction to leap forwards and pull her back that saved her from the ear-ringing explosion.
They'd all fallen to the ground next to the Impala and were covering their heads as the smouldering remains of Sarah's car rained down around them when Sam spotted the dark figure looking down at them from the second-floor window the fireball had burst out of. Then he blinked and it was gone.
As the fire died down they all got to their feet. Sam was instantly trying to find a glimpse of the dark figure again, but Dean and Sarah were looking forlornly at the smouldering black frame of what was her car.
"Even I don't have the heart to say anything, that was a damn fine car." Dean said and put his hand on Sarah's shoulder with deep sympathy. She didn't say anything but didn't move away either, just carried on staring at her car's corpse with vacant, shiny eyes.
"Looks like something doesn't want us to leave." Sam observed heavily as the window remained empty and turned around to find them still staring at the car. "Guys!" He said, trying to snap them out of it and see the real issue here.
Dean scowled at him. "Dude, she just lost her car." He said and Sam let out an agitated sigh as Dean adjusted his hand protectively on Sarah's shoulder. But that wasn't why she was still.
"Why isn't anyone coming out?" She asked and turned to look at them when they looked at her like she was crazy. "My car just exploded," she emphasised, incredulous that they didn't get it the first time.
"Maybe he's calling the cops like an ordinary person." Dean suggested dryly.
"You could probably have heard that from the edge of town, so why isn't anyone coming to find out what the hell it was?" She asked and the brothers turned around to look at the house. She was right, not even a curtain twitched. And it was silent. Deadly silent.
"Oh this isn't good." Dean muttered and in a moment of unified assumption that something had gone badly wrong, and they had to fight it, they all crowded around the trunk of the Impala. Dean cranked the flap hiding the weapon compartment open and started rummaging through it to find the rock salt bullets for him and Sam.
"Sure you don't want a gun?" He asked as he found them buried under three different guns in the right compartment and handed half to Sam.
She shook her head. "I'd manage to shoot you even if you were standing behind me." She said and Sam smirked.
"We'll have to teach you sometime." Dean replied, she was about to remind him of how she wasn't going to be sticking around after this, but her eye was caught by a wickedly curved knife fastened to the top board of the weapon box.
"Mind if I...?" She asked and gestured to it. Dean looked up from cocking his gun and nodded.
"Sure." He said and she unstrapped it, taking a stray piece of chalk while she was at it and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans as her coat had been in her car when it exploded.
"We ready?" Dean asked. Sarah and Sam nodded so he shut the trunk and hefted his gun into the waistband of his overalls.
He and Sam started walking around the side of the house across the stretch of dead grass, rather than the front door like she might have expected, and she followed them without a question.
"What are we looking for?" Sarah asked as they stuck close to the wall of the house, but her gaze was drawn to the barn on the edge of the lot before it all turned into dead forest. It was a dark mahogany colour but it began to turn black, then the colour from the rest of her vision began to drain to black too.
"A window wide enough to get through." Dean replied and took a few steps back to look at the entire side of the house. But Sarah couldn't draw herself away from the barn. She could feel the darkness of it sucking her in and it began to shake, like she was seeing three of it at once.
"Like this?" Sam suddenly asked, Sarah instinctively looked over to see him standing in front of a square window the width of his shoulders, and the sudden darkness vanished.
"Perfect." Dean said and jogged over to it. They hadn't seen it before because it was in a section of wall set further back than the first half. She looked back at the barn again but it was just a normal barn. She shook her head and went over to them.
Sam had already broken the latch and had the window slid up. It was at the height of his thigh so he practically just had to step and duck in. Dean went in second and Sarah held the window up for him as Sam made sure the room was clear. Dean did the same for her, she had to pull herself up a little more than them but got through fine and stepped out onto the beige, corded carpet.
Dean let the window quietly shut behind her and she carefully stepped away, so not to get her feet tangled in the long gossamer white curtains; the same type as the ones she'd seen in the little girl's room. They were in some sort of playroom in the corner of the house. There were plastic boxes of toys neatly pushed against the walls around them, a pink rock Barbie canvas box for dolls next to the window, a small TV in the corner, a chest of VHS tapes next to it and a shelf of children's books next to a closed, walk-in wardrobe near the door. The walls were a creamy yellow with white skirting.
It was pleasant, the soft and easy-on-the-eye interior design you'd expect from a children's playroom.
"Did you bring the journal?" Dean asked his brother who was apparently happy with the lack of anyone behind the doors leading out of the room. Sam nodded and patted the duffel bag he was carrying on his shoulder.
"'The journal'?" Sarah echoed and frowned at the two of them in momentary confusion.
"Our dad's journal, it's got a couple exorcisms in it." Dean explained and her face relaxed in realisation.
"Ohhh." She said and then twitched the corner of her upper lip up derogatively. "You don't need it, I already know them all." She assured them with a quick shake of her head and scrunched-up nose. "Only advantage to being brought up by a psycho-priest." She added, realising from their astounded wide eyes that she needed to clarify herself.
"Look guys, this is great but how are we even going to get the demon in one place to exorcise it?" Sam asked, deciding not to even try approaching the subject of her childhood. "I mean we're on its turf, it could rip us to shreds before we even-" He continued but was interrupted by a whimper that came from behind him. In the direction of the walk-in wardrobe.
They all immediately looked at it and Sarah realised the doors were just slightly ajar, and from the slit of darkness between them there was a flash of an eye.
Sam crept over to the cupboard as quietly as he could, circling around the three pastel-coloured beanbags slumped at the corner where the walls met. Dean was closer however and on the count of three pulled the doors wide open.
Sarah frowned from behind them and tried to peer over their shoulders without getting any closer. Sam shifted his eyes to Dean in alarm. They were pointing their guns at a terrified little girl. And she was about to scream.
"Hey hey hey, don't scream!" Dean said to her and put his hands out towards her palms-forward to show he didn't mean any harm. After a second thought he put down his gun. Sam had already put his down and grimaced as Dean's attempts were only scaring the girl more. Dean sent him a weak, rueful smile. He was trying.
The smile instantly faded as the girl scrambled to the back of the small cubby-hole and began to widen her mouth. "No no, we're just here to help you-" He rushed out and as his attempts to reassure her were still futile he reached in to cover her mouth.
"Dean-" Sam was about to start reasoning with him to try something else but Dean immediately shot back out with a grunt and his hand cradled to his chest. Sam jerked to help him in alarm, his eyes searching for some grievous injury on his brother, but it was soon explained.
"She just bit me." He said to Sam in disbelief and looked at his index finger with wide eyes.
Sam rolled his eyes but the girl was still terrified and on the verge of setting off all the alarms for any demons nearby. Sarah sighed heavily from behind them and, to their surprise, pushed past the both of them to crouch down in the open doorway of the cubby-hole.
"Hey Sophie, you remember me? Sarah." She said in the friendliest, quietest way possible and Sophie looked up from burying her head in her knees and loosened up a little.
"You're here to fix the water." Sophie stated but she said it as a question, and Sarah nodded encouragingly.
"And some... other things." She added and jerked the left corner of her mouth down in a grimace. She quickly eased back into a smile however and held out her hand. "Come on, we're not going to-" She started but Sophie immediately recoiled from her hand in fear.
"How do I know your eyes aren't going to go black too?" She asked, her little voice wobbling, and the brothers exchanged alarmed looks behind Sarah.
"That explains why no one came out of the house." Dean muttered behind her but she didn't take her eyes off Sophie.
"Look at my eyes, they're weird right? All bright and gold in the middle?" She asked and Sophie nodded, clutching on to the arm of a brown jacket that had fallen on the floor next to her. "They're not turning black." Sarah stated firmly and held out her hand again. After a few moments of looking warily between her eyes and her hand, which Sarah didn't even twitch either of, she slowly released the jacket sleeve and took Sarah's hand.
"There." Sarah smiled as she gently led Sophie out of the cubby-hole and held the quivering girl tightly as she ran to her. "Now," she started and broke away a little to hold her by the shoulders. "This is Sam and Dean," Sara introduced her to them, looking at them in turn so Sophie'd know who was who. "They may look big and scary but we're here to help you, and your parents." She said and Sophie looked up at them warily, she barely even reached the height of Sam's waist.
"Like Big Friendly Giants?" She asked Sarah and she nodded encouragingly, spotting a VHS of The BFG behind Sam next to the TV.
"Yeah, especially Sam." She said and he smiled down at Sophie to back it up. "Ignore Dean though, he's an idiot." Sarah winked and Dean crossed his arms, giving her the most offended pout he could, and Sophie cracked a little smile.
"Ah, Sophie," Sam said carefully, "could you tell us what happened?" He asked kindly and she looked back at Sarah as the fear returned to her eyes. Sarah gave her an encouraging nod.
"After you left I went downstairs to get a drink and dad was just standing in front of the door. He told me to go to bed, he never sends me to bed before 7 O' clock! And his eyes were black!" She whispered frantically as though they could hear her right now and Sarah nodded for her to continue. "Mom was walking up and down the hall and she was the same, so I ran in here, and there was this huge bang, and then you came." She finished and Sarah gave her a grateful smile.
"We're going to do everything we can to get them back to normal, Sophie." Sarah promised her and shook her hands once firmly. Sophie nodded despite her bottom lip wobbling and Sarah stood up to turn back to Sam and Dean. They were exchanging uneasy looks and they moved back a little to get out of Sophie's earshot.
"This thing's bringing along its own buddies now? That's just great." Dean hissed and Sarah shifted restlessly. "The sooner we take it down the better." He said.
Sarah nodded. "Well it's not down here and there was nothing upstairs so-" She said and Sam suddenly frowned at her.
"Wait, how can you be sure? You didn't have your EMF, Dean did." He interrupted her and Dean looked at her with equal suspicion. "And I could swear I saw something at the window-"
"Just trust me, there wasn't." Sarah countered firmly and Dean looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "If you did see something it would have moved by now. When I scanned the door to the basement the EMF barely flickered, hardly a demon. So if it isn't in the house, the only place we didn't check is-"
"The barn." Dean sighed and she nodded.
She looked out of the window at it and frowned. "Sophie," she said and turned around to face her. "What's in that barn?"
Sophie shrugged. "We've never used it, dad said there's no point without the water working." She informed them and Sarah raised her eyebrows, turning back to face Sam and Dean with an inferred expression that echoed theirs.
"Kinda makes it a good place to hide someone." Sarah said, pointing out what they were all thinking. Dean nodded but Sam laughed uncertainly.
"You're not actually considering that we just walk up to it? That's exactly what the demon will be expecting! You saw what it did from that window, it'd be suicide!" He exclaimed. They both looked like they grudgingly agreed with him, but Sarah protested regardless.
"Nick's in there!" She exclaimed stubbornly and Sam looked at her with a tight jaw. Dean shifted his stance to prepare to have his brother's back, then before either of them could bring out the handcuffs to make sure she didn't recklessly get herself killed, Sophie stepped in. She had, of course, been listening to the entire conversation as they'd all dropped their hushed, adult conversation voices within the first sentence.
"You could use the tunnel?" She suggested and all three dropped their tense stare-offs to look at the innocent child in surprise. "It goes to the barn." She added. She was scared by all the deadly serious talk of things she'd only heard of from the horror movies she sometimes caught her parents watching at night, but despite that she looked rather pleased with herself that she'd come up with something that got all their attention.
"What... tunnel?" Sam asked with a wary frown and Sophie obligingly explained.
"The farmers who used to live here built it in the basement so they could get food to the animals in winter without going outside in the snow." She recited to him with a small hint of smugness, it was a frequent lecture from her father finally coming into use.
"Huh." Sam said. Dean raised his eyebrows and they looked back at eachother.
"It would explain the flicker my EMF got from the basement." Sarah put in and they nodded.
"So, we go for the basement?" Dean asked and pulled his gun out of his jeans' waistband under his overalls. Sam smiled tightly with a small nod in confirmation and picked up the duffel he'd dropped next to the beanbags. Sarah just stood determinedly next to the door.
"Right, good work kid," he said and ruffled Sophie's hair. "But you stay here until we come back. The demons don't want you so-" He was telling her but her eyes were increasing in fear again and she backed away to the wall.
"Please, don't leave me." She said and looked frantically at Sarah. "They're still walking around the house, and what if you don't come back?" She asked in a panic. Sam and Dean awkwardly looked at eachother as they tried to think of a way to persuade her to stay, but Sarah looked thoughtful.
"Ok, you can come with us to the basement." She told her and her small shoulders dropped in relief. "She's right, the demons are still patrolling the house." She said in defense to Dean and Sam's bewildered expressions. "We can block the door behind us," she turned back to face Sophie and smiled, "you'll be safe there." She offered Sophie her hand again and the little girl took it. She pulled her next to the door they were preparing to go out of and Dean gave a small smile at the sight of Sophie's trusting hand in Sarah's.
"Stay with Sam. This isn't going to be easy but he'll keep you safe" She said and placed her in front of Sam, who smiled down at her. Sophie looked up at him dubiously but decided Sarah was telling the truth and stayed put.
Sarah straightened up to Dean clicking the safety off of his gun and she raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Guns? Really? They're her parents, we can't shoot them!" She whispered.
"Their kneecaps or your friend's life?" Dean asked. She tensely worked her jaw as they both knew which she'd choose and Dean loaded his gun with a complacent click in front of her face.
Chapter 6
Dean lead the way into the hall with Sam bringing up the rear and the girls between them. They hugged the corner of the centre wall in single file and crept along, looking around frantically at the smallest hint of the Morrises approaching as they made their way to the front door, stairs and door to the basement at the top of it.
Everything was silent and Dean took a moment from keeping watch ahead to look back at Sarah, and how she smiled down reassuringly at the bushbaby-eyed girl she'd stood up for.
"You know you can be kinda nice when you're not..." He said to her in a low voice that couldn't be heard if you were over a foot away, but their heads were so close it didn't matter.
"What?" She whispered back with a curious smile that made the corer of her left eye crease up.
"Well," he cleared his throat slightly, "not being a bitch."
"Right back atcha." She replied without missing a beat and looked back over her shoulder to check on Sam's status with a smirk. Dean laughed to himself quietly and smiled as he accepted his defeat.
"He must be some guy then, for you to do all this for him." He asked, not wanting to let the string of conversation go, and she looked back at him.
She nodded. "He's been my best friend since I was thirteen, he was the only one who'd still speak to me when my dad cut off/boycotted the hunters." She told him and his brows furrowed.
"Why'd he do that?" He asked.
"He convinced himself that my mum left him because of her hunter upbringing, so declared anything to do with demons was evil and subjected to the devil or whatever bullshit like that, even the people who hunted them." She scoffed and Dean looked away with an almost silent "Geez."
"He bought me that car too" She said after a beat of silence. "Well, not exactly." She said when she saw Dean's disbelieving eyes at the suggestion that a hunter would have the budget for a top sportscar. "A car dealer owed us his life, pissed ghost of an ex-wife and all that, so he practically gave us the car for free out of guilt. I was still basically a runaway so Nick paid the two thousand for it so it'd still be a legal purchase. We had a car." She smiled at the memory of Nick letting her take the first drive. Dean was considering placing a hand on her shoulder in sympathy again as they neared the first of three doors in the hall's right wall before they got to the room containing the front door, when a thud from the other end of the corridor made them freeze and stand to alert like meerkats.
"Did you hear that?" Sarah hissed and it was followed by another, smaller one. Sam held his gun at the ready and backed him and Sophie up closer to the others. Dean looked down the hallway wildly as there was no movement but there was another thud, louder and closer than the others that sounded like it came from the playroom. If there was only one he could shoot them down to be immobile easily in the straight corridor, but what Sarah had said about Sophie's parents echoed through his mind, and there was the fireball-throwing figure Sam had seen...
"Through the door, quickly!" He whispered urgently enough that he sounded hoarse, and pushed Sarah towards the first door they'd come across. It took her two twists of the doorknob to get it open but when she did she span around to the other side of it and the others quickly followed her. Sophie first, then Sam and Dean. Dean closed the door as quietly as he could with all the adrenaline rushing through him and they slouched against the wall in relief.
Sarah opened her eyes after a few deep breaths and turned to Dean to thank him, she knew they could have ended it right then and there by attacking. She had to blink. Twice. Everything was black.
After a second her eyes adjusted and she caught a few dim rays of light reflecting on Sam and Dean's befuddled faces, as well as making the shapes of the furniture around the room somewhat visible. She flicked her eyes over to the big, solid glass windows on the wall opposite them and frowned further as the previously bright blue sky was completely dark.
"I thought it was three in the afternoon?" She asked as she walked around the shuffleboard dominating the room to the window.
"It is." Sam confirmed uncertainly and followed her.
Dean flicked the light switch next to the door on and off several times behind them. "Lights are out." He informed them and watched as they squinted up out of the window and realised the darkness wasn't the sky at all.
Dark, swirling clouds surrounded them completely, at a few points they were thin enough to let a ray of light or two through, but it wasn't much.
"How much dyu wanna bet it ends right where the dead trees stop?" Sarah asked as she spotted a slither of blue sky in the distance, bluntly rounding the clouds off.
"Do you hear that?" Sam asked, not paying attention, and they all went utterly silent as they focused on a vibration they hadn't noticed was there get louder. It was deep and dark but sounded like a rhythmic screech at the same time.
"It sounds like a ritual." Sarah frowned. "I can't tell what it is, it's certainly not Latin." She sighed and looked down at the window again. Then her eyes properly focused on the window pane's handle and she frowned. She jiggled it around but the lock didn't give.
"They're all locked." She said as she tried the next one down, and the next.
Dean groaned as he realised the thuds they'd heard sounded exactly like windows being slammed down from a distance. "They know we're here."
"Then we gotta move." Sam urged and Dean nodded. He poked his nose out of the door first to check the way was clear. It wasn't easy as with no windows the corridor practically was black, but he heard nothing and nodded back at Sam and Sarah.
"Flashlights." He whispered to Sam who obligingly rummaged around in his duffel bag and produced two battery-powered torches. He handed one to Dean and they turned them on, Sam laid a hand on Sophie's shoulder and lead her out as Dean took the lead again.
Sarah took one last look at the demonic weather outside of the window, a small part of her she refused to acknowledge made her eyes squint up slightly in recognition, from a memory long long ago, before she blinked her bright ringed eyes uncomfortably and followed them.
They darted out into the corridor and flattened themselves against the wall. Sam rapidly flashing his torch down the hall and Dean doing the same in the other direction. There was no sign or sound of the Morrises again so they moved onwards, sticking close to the wall. They moved faster and more uncaring than before, there was no tentative conversation this time, they were being out-raced.
Sarah was so eager to get to the basement that she'd moved out from the wall and was about to step in front of Dean. There was a flicker of movement, a minute scuff of a shoe against wood flooring, that she noticed only just in time to hiss, "Torches!" Before the Morrises came into view as they turned the corner and entered the corridor from the hall.
Having no time to do anything else as they flicked off their torches, Dean grabbed Sarah and pulled her against his chest as they flattened against the alcove in the wall before the corner. They were close enough to the hall for the faint rays of light filtering through the front door and its windows to light up the neck of the corridor, but not enough for the alcove not to be still flooded with darkness.
Sarah was hyper-aware of the proximity between her and Dean, as was he and they both raised and bent their heads awkwardly so as not to touch further, but that faded when the Morrises stalked past them.
Sam pulled Sophie to him and covered her mouth with his hand, muffling the whimper that she accidentally let loose at seeing her parents. She buried herself against his leg and they all held their breaths as they passed.
However Sarah was focusing on one particular area of the Morrises' bodies. The light was still extremely poor but there was just enough around for her to make out an area on their chests that seemed incrementally darker. Hey eyes widened so much she was concerned the whites of her eyes would reflect and give away their position. She pressed herself against Dean's chest further, but the Morrises passed them without even a glance to the shadowed wall. They all relaxed and let out a, quiet, sigh of relief but Sarah surprised Dean by grabbing his overall's collar and putting her face right in front of his.
"Did you see their chests?" She hissed frantically as quietly as she could and he frowned in a momentary daze as he repressed his instincts of what he thought her rough behaviour had meant. "They must have shot the bodies after they possessed them, if we exorcise them we kill them!" She said in muted distress as Sam and Sophie were beginning to become concerned. Dean looked directly at her as he realised what she was saying and then at Sophie in raw sympathy as from now on she would be an orphan.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and Sarah stepped away from him with much looking anywhere but at him now that she'd come to her senses. "Those sons of bitches!" He cursed frustratedly under his breath and Sam looked at them puzzledly. Sarah waved her finger at her chest, mimed shooting a gun at it and then nodded in the direction the Morrises had gone as quickly as she could. Sam got what she meant and closed his eyes with a grimace but despite her attempts at subtlety, Sophie still sensed that something was wrong.
"We need to get to the basement before they come around again." Sarah stated firmly before the little girl could speak up. Sam and Dean agreed and turned their torches back on as they all went around the corner into the hall, no regard for sticking to the shadows anymore.
Sarah went immediately to open the door to the basement and Dean provided his torchlight, but Sam wasn't so sure. He hung back in the centre of the hall.
"Has it crossed your mind that the demon could be expecting this too?" He asked dubiously then glanced down at Sophie and checked his voice. She was listening intently to everything they said. "If this is the only other way in, it'll know about it too."
Sarah nodded and stuck her thumbs in her pockets in a completely nonplussed manner. "So we make it as much as a trap for it as it is for us." She then nodded to the corridor leading out of the hall that she'd gone through before. "There's salt in the kitchen, and a back door. If they locked that too then the spare key's under a glass on the counter. You should be able to get to the barn without a hitch."
Sam raised his eyebrows with a small, disbelieving bark of laughter. "A circle?"
Sarah smiled wryly. "If the demon does know about the tunnel, it'll be too busy focusing on us to realise what you're doing."
Dean flashed his eyebrows at her and smiled in approval. "You're sure salt will work on it?" He asked.
Sarah shrugged. "It's still a demon, no matter what it looks like." She then turned to Sophie, who still remained timidly in Sam's shadow. "Come on," She said and beckoned to the door. "We need to get you down there before-"
Sophie suddenly whimpered and clung to Sam's leg. "No, I don't want to go!" She complained and looked dubiously down the black void behind the open basement door. Sam raised his arms awkwardly as he wasn't sure whether to pry off the little girl, comfort her or not touch her at all. Dean glanced at the archway behind the stairs connecting to the corridor that wrapped around the house and Sam followed his gaze too.
It was not lost on Sarah. They were running out of time.
She could have told either of them to pick Sophie up and carry her down, but instead she went on one knee in front of her and looked directly into her watery green eyes.
"Look, Sophie. Sam has to stay up here so he can give us our best chance against the demon." She explained clearly with a kind and confident voice. Sophie didn't even consider questioning her. "Then me and Dean are going to go through the tunnel, rescue my friend and we'll all send the thing responsible for all of this back where it came from. In the morning you'll wake up and this will all be a bad dream. The water will be fixed and your dad can start making this a proper farm, just like he wanted to."
"And my parents, you'll fix them too?" Sophie asked with a wavering but hopeful voice.
Sarah nodded. "Yeah, we'll fix them too honey." She smiled and pulled her into a brief hug. If the lie was as painful to her as it sounded to Sam and Dean, she didn't show it.
-insert trying to persuade Sophie to go into the basement but she doesn't want to leave Sam-
They went through the adjacent room in single file. Sam bringing up the rear, then Sophie, Sarah and Dean. All stepping as quietly as they could and holding their weapons with both hands, pointing towards their feet. Ready to swing up and fire the second they heard even a whisper of whisper from the possessed Morrises.
The room was a library of sorts. Some actual bookshelves ran across the walls but mostly it was dvds, boxes, music, more boxes that still hadn't been thrown out from moving, and it was dominated by a ping-pong table that Dean ogled enviously.
They skirted around it against the wall though and Dean looked over his shoulder at Sarah. She had a look on her face that said there was nothing she wouldn't do to get her partner back. He smiled. It was a familiar look.
"
Instead of room>room they go through playroom>hall-in-middle>duck into room>ritual starts>out to hall>hide from Morrises in alcove or other room?
Sarah asks Sophie what's in it. She replies they never use it. Pointed looks. Sam points out approaching it would be suicide as the demon'll be expecting it. Sophie tells them about the tunnel from basement to barn. Sarah says it explains the flicker her EMF got from the basement.
"So what does this thing look like?"
"I'm not sure, we never got a clear look at it. Maybe Your [Sam's] height but twice as wide/broad, smouldering dark red, curly horns, just like the stories."
"Why is no one coming out? My car just exploded, you could hear that from the edge of town. Why is nobody coming out to see what it was?"
Dean gets them in by saying they've heard there's been some problems with the pipes down in the archives/computer/records room, it's been happening all over town and they're hoping they'll crack down on it, so asks if they could take a look. The receptionist takes them down in relief, luckily for them there has been some problems with the pipes OR the receptionist makes a stupid comment about the air conditioning not working properly, unaware that the air conditioning is to do with the wiring, not the pipes.
Sam scoots over to the computers and hacks in/Dean got the pass of a cop he bumped into on the way there. Dean remarks incredulously that plumbers get everywhere and they should do it more often if only they didn't look like -something disturbing that he can pointedly direct at Sam-. Whoever is on the computer remarks that Sarah lied and she has been to America before OR he simply tells the other to "take a look at this", having found the report of her dad's entry to a hospital 5 days ago. Scene ends before it's revealed.
Next scene is Dean confronting Sarah on one of the benches outside the City Hall, saying she lied to them and her dad's still alive. Sam cuts in a little more kindly as it might be news to her, and informs her that he's dying in hospital and was admitted 5 days ago. Sarah tells him it doesn't matter and he's dead to her, it was him who told her to never go back anyway. It echoes exactly what Sam said to Dean once and he tries to make her see sense by telling her he once felt the same about his dad. Sarah then laughs incredulously and admits she lied to them about knowing their dad, opens up/rants to them about her dad and how John Winchester was more of a father to her in the 3 days he visited than hers ever was/was in 13 years.
Door smells like rotten eggs, door has a smell-blocking gauze over its window. Mr Clark enters, questions why a specialist didn't go to the month-suffering family's house first and Sarah realises Nick or the demon won't be here as the house has only been affected for a week. She calls for Harry and calls Sam Peter Parker as she can't remember his full name. Mr Clark reveals they went upstairs and she goes. She effects Dean's EMF so she gives him hers. Dean asks why her EMF doesn't go funny for her and she responds it's smarter. He changes tack and asks if her family were hunters as she knew their dad and she lies saying they're all dead. They come up with nothing and suddenly everything goes black as something flashes past the house. They rush to the window but it's gone, Dean notices the old shed. Mrs Clark reveals the water's back but the trio want to go outside anyway to check out the shed, which Mr Clark has never used. Inside they find a full-on demon summoning circle, burnt into the concrete ground. Dean suspects Mr Clark but Sarah points out it's far too deep and finely detailed detailed/crisp for a human to do, and snappily asks if he could do this with a match for 24 hours, and a flame-thrower would be too uncontrollable. They then leave the premises and Dean corners Sarah on what they are hunting. The cars are to be left until later.
"Why are basements where the baddies hang out never well-lit?" Sarah grumbled and Dean laughed.
"Well that would be too easy!" He replied boldly.
"Did you do this?" Dean asked as Depeche Mode's Wrong suddenly blared on through the speakers as he started the ignition. Sam shook his head with a frown and Dean shrugged as he bobbed his shoulders along to the music.
"What?" He asked as Sam looked at him incredulously. "It's kind of catchy. 'I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason and the wrong rhyme...'" He sang along and Sam scoffed.
"Someone broke into your car and you're complimenting their music taste?" He asked.
"What? No! There isn't even any sign of a break-in, the locks are still intact. It's just one of those things where you forget all about getting it for years until you dig it up. I must have put the wrong cassette in." Dean defended as they pulled away and he echoed the repeated line "wrong!" to his brother with a grin.
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