Under the Bridge | 2/8
Part One
--
When John’s phone rings the next morning, he and Dean are going through land purchase records and reports of second-quarter business earnings. He looks at the caller ID, recognises the area code, and taps Dean on the shoulder to let his son know he’s heading out to take the call. Dean frowns but nods and John hurries out, opening the phone in the library’s foyer before it can go to voicemail.
“Aurelie?” he asks, once he’s standing outside, basking in the sun. Libraries are always cold; he’s never been able to figure out why.
“’Ello, John,” the witch says, voice smooth.
Still, John’s known Aurelie for fifteen years now and he can tell when something has her spooked. “What’s wrong?”
She exhales, sounds as if she’s banging pots and pans around her kitchen. “Now, why would you assume something’s wrong just ‘cause I’m calling, hmm? The case, it isn’t going well?”
John’s eyes settle on a strip of grass and narrow. “Aurelie,” he says, half a growl of warning.
“I did warn you,” she says. John can hear the water turning on, bouncing around, he thinks, an iron pot. “I said this ‘unt would be ‘ard.”
“Did you know about this?” John demands to know. “The kid, the father, all the damned demons?”
She laughs, odd counterpoint to the worried tone of her voice. “Everything I knew, I told you.”
John hisses through his teeth. “Don’t you dare lie to me, you damned witch,” he says. One of the young girls walking past him, up the steps into the library, turns and gives him a wide-eyed look. “Come on, Aurelie. What else do you know?”
There’s silence for a long few moments, both Aurelie and whatever she’s cooking up in the kitchen. “’E won’t send you away, you’ve noticed.” John’s about ready to argue, ask her if she’s gone crazy, because Ben’s already told him to fuck off more than people usually get away with, but she goes on before he can say anything. “’E ‘as never lifted an ‘and to you like ‘e ‘as with your son. Ever think about why? Look, John, all I’m saying is that maybe you should spend more time with ‘im. ‘E likes you.”
“He tolerates me, Aurelie,” John responds, half-despondent now. “There are so many unanswered questions Dean and I have about this case and half of the answers have to be wrapped up in that kid, but he runs every time we get near and no one in this town will talk to us.”
“’E runs every time?” Aurelie asks. “Somehow, I doubt that, John. Spend time with ‘im. Feed ‘im, if you can, ‘e never eats.”
John opens his mouth to say something, then stops, closes his mouth and thinks. “How do you. Aurelie, what are you doing?”
She laughs and there’s background noise again, something being chopped, maybe. “John, just talk t’ the child, all right? And stop by the desk later this week, maybe next, I’m not sure. There might be a package waiting for you.”
Aurelie hangs up and John looks at his phone with resignation. There’s no sense in calling her back, so he takes a deep breath, enjoys another moment of sunshine, then heads back inside.
--
He doesn’t tell Dean what Aurelie said, not until they’re out of the library and comparing notes in the motel room. There are some odd things going on with the father, Ahrenson; the people coming and going from his house, for one, the company’s business for another. None of it makes sense, though John’s starting to get an ache in the pit of his stomach that means he’s getting closer.
“I’m going to see if Ben’s out there,” John says, pushing himself off of the bed, standing up and stretching. Dean, sprawled out on the other bed, looks up with a yawn and reaches for his pack of cigarettes.
“Good luck,” he says, and John thinks he can almost see Dean’s tonsils with the width of his son’s yawn. “What, Aurelie tell you that you might get somewhere?”
John scratches his stomach, reaches for his jacket and, after a second’s thought, another compass. “Hardly,” he mutters. “Damn witch, can’t ever say anything helpful.”
Dean doesn’t say anything, but John can feel his son watching him as he puts on his shoes and leaves.
--
John goes to the bridge first but he’s not surprised when he doesn’t find Ben there, either sitting by himself or turning tricks. He holds the compass in his left hand while the right steers the Impala through the town, following the path of the needle. John’s telling it to take him to Ben, not one of the other demons; since his talk with Aurelie, John’s not at all shocked when he stops the car across the street from one of Ash’s pinpointed hot spots and sees Ben sitting on the front step of an abandoned building.
He parks the Impala and gets out, closes the door and leans against his car. John waits until Ben looks up at him before nodding once, not moving any closer, showing that he isn’t a threat and that he isn’t there to buy anything, either.
“What do you want with me?” Ben finally asks. “Why do you keep following me?” The look Ben directs at him is tired, yes, but there’s anger simmering underneath the fatigue, anger and the threat of death.
John doesn’t know who that threat’s directed at, but he takes it seriously just as he takes the question seriously despite answering it with his own. “Wanna grab some food?
Ben tilts his head, an action that, perversely, reminds John of Dean, of Mary, and shrugs. The kid’s so skinny, in this light the action almost looks ethereally graceful instead of indecisively sad. “You’re paying,” Ben states, and, when John nods, says of course, he stands up. John can hear the crack of Ben’s knees popping, echoing like gunshots down the street.
The kid’s halfway across the street when another car comes roaring down the alley, black hybrid with tinted windows braking to a halt three inches from Ben’s knees. The driver doesn’t move, but the back doors open on both sides. Only one man gets out, wearing a suit, sunglasses. John raises an eyebrow, pushes off of the car. Ben glances at him, shakes his head, and John stops, actually stops.
“Your father wonders if you’ll be home tonight,” one of the men says.
“You can tell my father I’m doing just fine,” Ben spits out. “I’m following instructions, but right now I’m hungry and he’s offered to pay,” he adds, tilting his head in John’s direction.
The man turns and looks at John for a long, weighing moment, before turning back to Ben. “Your father wouldn’t approve, young master. Hunters are not the most acceptable company, but I can tell you, this one is especially not.”
Ben snorts and says, “You and I both know my father isn’t the most acceptable company, Ari. Go back and tell him.” Ben stops, thinking for a moment, then says, in the most crystal clear voice John’s ever heard before, “Tell him boni pastoris est tondere pecus non deglubere. And then tell him he can go fuck himself if he thinks I’m going to come running home this soon just so he can flay me again.”
John’s not sure if Ben’s speaking literally or figuratively, decides that, with the broken ribs, he’s not sure he wants to know. What he does want to know is how some street kid knows Latin, and why he knows Tiberius, of all things.
“Young master,” Ari says, though he stops when Ben growls, changes track and says, “I’ll inform him that you won’t be home tonight, though I believe I might change the exact wording of your statement. When shall I say you’ll be returning?”
“I’ll come home when I’m damn good and ready,” Ben says. He pauses, looks as another man emerges from the other side of the car, and folds in on himself, nothing physical, as if he’s pulling inward, hiding without moving. “Sorry,” he whispers, “sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry.”
John’s eyes narrow, looking between Ben and the silent man he doesn’t yet have a name for. This is way out of character for the kid -- or is it, John thinks, recalling the way Ben flinched nights ago under the bridge. Out of character, maybe, but this is exactly the same way Ben acted then in the presence of that demon.
“Christo,” John says.
Both Ari and the other man narrow their eyes. The second man bares his teeth and gets back in the car; the first, Ari, says, “Take care, young master,” before sliding into the car and slamming the door.
Ben turns to John, says, “You really shouldn’t have done that.” The car drives past, turning on two wheels as it hits the corner and heads north.
John feels sick as he looks at the kid, all of Ben’s attitude back. He can’t help asking, “How many of them are there?”
“Too many to count,” Ben says flippantly, still standing in the middle of the street. “Arioch, he’s all right, just a lackey, low-demon on the totem pole and not too bad, but the other one.” Ben stops, just stops.
“You still hungry?” John asks, voice soft the way it is when he’s trying to placate his son after a night of drinking. “I got a couple twenties burning a hole in my wallet.”
Ben eyes John the way other hunters usually do, wondering if John’s really done the things others say he has, wondering if he can get the drop on John if it came down to it.
“Come on,” John coaxes. “Place down the street’s supposed to have good chili.”
“Don’t like chili,” Ben mutters, taking a step towards the Impala.
John smiles, rubs one cheek, offers, “Chicken strips?”
Ben licks his lips, shakes his head, eyes focused on John’s face. John feels the weight of that gaze like a two-by-four to the head and he’s not watching the way the kid moves, he’s not, not comparing Ben to a wild cat, untamed and feral, beautiful and deadly. He wishes he could reach for his gun without Ben seeing -- John needs the reassurance of steel and iron.
“Burger?” he asks, not moving, praying his voice doesn’t shake. It doesn’t. Ben runs one hand over the hood of the Impala as he crosses in front of the car, fingertips skimming the warm metal in an action almost close to a caress. “I’ll look at the menu when I get there,” he says, and climbs into the passenger seat.
John lets out a deep breath, wonders just what he has in his car.
--
The diner’s not big, about the size of a Waffle House with lights that seem harsh, too jarring, after the darkness outside. John’s not complaining, though, not when it gives him the chance to sit Ben down across a table and just look at the kid. He’s skinny but not as much as John had originally thought; dirt and harsh cheekbones bring out the shadows in Ben’s face and those eyes of his don’t do much to help. They don’t match the all-knees-and-elbows of the kid’s stature, should be young, vibrant or kicked down, one of the two. Instead, they’re old, older than any pair of eyes John’s seen in a human before, witches and mambos included.
“What sounds good, Ben?” John asks, passing over a menu.
Ben grins, the expression almost fey, but the unnaturalness of it fades away from view, out of sight, when the waitress comes over. It’s as if Ben’s letting John see something he hides from everyone else, at least everyone else that John’s seen the kid with.
“Your usual, Ben?” the waitress asks, giving the kid a smile, pen poised over a notepad.
“Thank you, Mrs. Visser,” Ben says, “but he’s paying.” The woman’s eyes flick over to John, study him and seem to warn him, mama-cat trying to steer a predator from her kitten. John wants to tell her that the kitten’s claws are probably sharper than his own. “I’ll have a chicken sandwich, grilled, water to drink, and a piece of pie?”
The waitress’s smile returns as she looks at Ben, and she says, “We got apple, cherry, and strawberry-rhubarb, sweetie. What sounds good?”
Ben bites his lower lip, flicks his eyes at John, then says, “Cherry, please.”
“And you?” The waitress looks back at John, and the tone of her voice is less than impressed.
“Burger with everything, fries, and a coke. Please,” John adds, giving Mrs. Visser a tight smile.
She flounces off, one last, motherly look at Ben, and stands behind the counter, putting in their order and glaring at John.
“She seems,” John starts to say, before he can think of a word to finish that sentence with, something that’s flattering instead of taken-aback or distasteful. She obviously cares for Ben and he must spend a great deal of time in here to have a usual; he doesn’t want to jeopardise the slight truce he’s reached with the kid because of a waitress.
Ben seems to know what John’s thinking, or at least follows the track of John’s thoughts. His grin widens and he ducks his head down, peering at John through bangs that speak of a curl more than a wave, even though his hair’s greasy, lank. John finds himself thinking that the kid would be pretty if he was clean, then swallows, pushes it out of his mind.
“Mrs. Visser’s nice,” Ben says. “She can be a bit over-protective, though.”
“And how do you know her?” John asks. “You in here a lot?”
Ben laughs and the sound is startlingly carefree, joyous, even as his eyes are weighing John, taking measure and trying to decide if John’s worthy of being let into Ben’s own thoughts. Evidently John passes muster, because Ben says, “Mr. Visser, her husband, pastors a church on the other side of town.” When he goes on, his face is wiped clean of emotion. “He taught me Latin when I was having trouble with some of the reading. A little Greek as well, and some of the older rites that my father wouldn’t.”
John leans back in his chair, keeping his eyes fixed to Ben’s. He’s relatively sure that Ben’s answer is a test as much as anything else, a question of his own, but John’s not sure how he’s supposed to react. His footing with this kid hasn’t been established yet, he feels too off-balance, and John’s ready to curse Aurelie for how useless her information was. Take the kid out for a meal, right.
“How old were you when you started your lessons?” John asks. “My son, he knows church Latin, enough to get by even though he’s not keen on the language. He started when he was seven and I can guarantee he wouldn’t know Tiberius if the general came back to life and smacked him on the head.”
Ben’s eyes gleam at the mention of Dean but, again, John doesn’t know why, where that gleam comes from. “My father raised me to speak it fluently,” Ben says. “There were some lessons I didn’t understand, though, so he sent me to Mr. Visser.”
“And the demons?” John asks, tentatively. “Did Mr. Visser teach you about those things, too?”
The kid starts to laugh, again; John’s not sure why. The waitress comes back with their drinks, plunks John’s down with little attention but pulls out a small napkin for Ben. “Food’ll be up in a couple minutes,” she says, speaking to Ben.
He smiles his thanks and, as John’s thinking that Ben’s teeth are in damned good condition for a kid on the streets, Ben says, “My father did, of course. Be pretty stupid not to, living in that house.”
John stops, stares wide-eyed at Ben, who just sits there and smiles in a manner that’s starting to infuriate John.
“Your father beats you,” John says, voice quiet even though they’re the only customers in the small diner and he’s pretty sure Mrs. Visser knows all about it. “And he has demons staying in the house. Since when?” Ben’s expression is clear, implacable. John’s face must be showing how worried he is, how much he doesn’t believe what he’s hearing. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” he hurries to say. “Just, Jesus. Raising a child in a house full of demons.”
Ben shrugs. “Ari’s not so bad. I like him better in a male body than the last host he had, but he’s decent and keeps me away from the other ones when I’m home.”
“And when you’re not?” John asks. He’s. He’s shocked. He feels like he’s going into shock.
“Then I’m on my own,” Ben replies.
Before John can organise his thoughts, before he can say anything or react in any way, Mrs. Visser comes back with two plates, thumps one in front of John with no care if the food actually stays on the plate or not, places the other lightly on Ben’s paper placemat, ruffles the boy’s hair.
“I’ll bring your pie out when you get halfway through your sandwich,” she says, firm. “Not a moment before. Enjoy.”
John’s still too stunned to start eating; he watches as Ben picks up his knife and cuts his sandwich in half, then quarters, as if he’s had long familiarity with knives. The kid eats quickly but cleanly, wiping his face after every third bite-and-swallow, sipping at his water without using a straw.
“How long have there been demons in your house?” John asks again, realising Ben had never answered his question.
Ben gives John a slight smile, says, “Since before my father and I moved in,” as if that’s a stupid question. John’s stomach turns, all appetite leaves, and he can only watch as Ben finishes half of his sandwich and Mrs. Visser brings over a huge piece of pie with ice cream on top.
“Why did you flinch when I Christoed that demon under the bridge? And then again tonight?,” John asks. He’s watching Ben’s face closely, would’ve missed the tightening of the skin around Ben’s eyes, the way he parts his lips in a stolen breath, if he hadn’t been. The kid’s a master of his body language, though, the way he’s only dreamed of teaching Dean, so Ben might be faking. John’s not sure. Not being sure doesn’t scare him like it normally would; it sends a thrill of challenge down his spine.
Ben shakes his head, takes a sip of water and a bite of pie before he answers. “Markos,” Ben starts to say. He stops, shakes his head again. “Ari, Arioch, is a lower-level demon and decent enough. Markos isn’t.”
That seems to be all that Ben’s going to say on the topic, so John lets it drop.
--
John goes back to the motel, writes down the names of the demons that Ben had mentioned, Arioch and Markos, on one of the sheets Bobby mailed him. By the way Ben was talking about Ari’s hosts, he assumes that those are the names of the actual demons, not just the bodies they’re inhabiting. The problem is, John’s never heard of them.
Dean’s not in the room but left a message, something about getting information from some of the other street-walkers around town. John spares a minute to smirk, wonder if his son’s actually working or taking advantage of the time John’s leaving him alone, but his smirk fades as he looks again at that short list of two names.
He’s got books in the car but John takes out his phone, calls Bobby, unmindful of the time of night. For good reason, apparently, as Bobby answers his phone on the second ring with a muttered, “There better be a good reason you’re calling me, John.”
John laughs, relaxes enough to do that. “Because you’re the best?” he asks. When Bobby throws a muffled curse in his direction, John says, “I have a couple leads but I wanted to see if you’d heard these names before I spend hours trying to find them in the Goetia.”
“Demons?” Bobby asks, surprised. “Real, honest names? Not host names?”
“I know,” John says. “But there’ve been some,” he pauses, “some strange complications in this case. We have a witness who can apparently recognise the demon inside of the host, no matter how often he switches. He gave me a couple names.”
Bobby whistles, low and long, finally says, “That’s a difficult skill to develop,” as if John doesn’t know that already. “Either that or it’s inborn. How old’s this witness?”
John loathes the idea of saying anything about Ben, almost as if he wants to hoard the boy to himself, which makes him say, “The kid’s sixteen, maybe seventeen. Raised from birth in a house of demons. I don’t know if he was taught or exposed, or was born with the gift; he’s a hard sell.”
“Which names?” Bobby asks after a moment of silence, as if he’s taking in everything John’s saying as well as everything John isn’t saying. John doesn’t want to know what sort of vibes Bobby’s picking up from him.
“Arioch, which the kid keeps calling a low-level lackey, and Markos, who terrifies the kid,” John says. Bobby’s silent for so long that John says, “Bobby? You still there?”
Bobby coughs, says, “Yeah, I’m. I’m here. John, you sure about that?”
John looks at the note, thinks back, says, “I am, yes, one hundred percent. Why? This is bad?”
“Arioch is a lower-level demon,” Bobby replies. “One of the fallen whose name appeared in a grimoire somewhere between Egypt and Turkey during the Dark Ages. By all accounts, he’s pretty harmless, a lackey who gets traded around between the bigger names when they have something they need to protect. But Markos, if that’s who I think it is.”
Bobby stops there, and John has to call his friend’s name to bring Bobby back into the conversation. Bobby being distracted like this, almost sounding close to worried, it’s not a good thing, not good at all.
“Markos, short for Marchosias, as in, Marquis Marchosias, who’s one of the second-sphere dominions named in the Goetia and ruler over thirty legions,” Bobby says. “Word went around that he was exorcised back in the late eighteen-hundreds; took close to two dozen hunters to trap him and kick him out and only half of them survived. No one was sure why he was on earth to begin with and we’ve counted ourselves lucky he hasn’t made a return appearance.”
“Is there anyone else that could apply to?” John asks, almost desperate for Bobby to say yes, to tell him that the demon Ben’s so afraid of isn’t one of the Goetic demons, usually the worst around.
Bobby exhales, says, “No,” plain as day. “And if those two are around, chances are that some of the higher-ups are as well. Marchosias wouldn’t leave hell for anyone other than a prince, not after the exorcism, and Arioch’s too much of a prize to serve a mere dominion. We’re talking a fallen seraph or cherub, John, nothing less than that. And if one of them’s around, you can be sure he brought an army with him.” John sits down on the bed before his knees can give out. “What the hell’s going on down there, huh?” Bobby asks.
“If I knew,” John says, “I’d tell you.”
Bobby hums, then offers, “If you need me to come down, I will. Just say the word.”
John sighs. “I know. Thank you.”
--
John waits up until Dean comes back, clothes on but hair mussed, lips swollen, and a self-satisfied smile on his face, one that fades when he sees that John’s still awake.
“You get something?” Dean asks, as if there wouldn’t be any other reason for John to be up and waiting for him. “Find the kid?”
John cracks a grin, raises an eyebrow, asks, “You pull up any useful information?”
Dean grimaces, self-consciously, John thinks, and runs a hand down his chest as if smoothing out wrinkles or checking to make sure there’s nothing incriminating on his clothes. “Some,” he says, taking his boots off and throwing his jacket on the bed, sprawling out on the floor and peeling off his button-down, rolling up the sleeves of his t-shirt.
“A couple talked to me,” Dean goes on, “not about Ahrenson, but about the house. There’s a couple guys who work there, some kinds of bodyguards or secretaries, lower-level guys, that like to rent out women every so often. And,” he adds, reaching for the bottle of Jack, “they said that a lot of the men there like the kid. He’s off-limits to everyone except the father when he’s in the house -- unless the dad says it’s okay -- but when he’s on the streets he’s fair game. Is there any way to explain that? I mean, come on, the kid would rather let demons rape him? What the hell’s his dad doing to him?”
John looks down at his hands, then back at Dean. “I talked to Ben tonight,” he starts off, slow and easy, trying not to show how skittish this case, this kid, is making him. “The dad, he’s in deep with demons. Taught the kid Latin before he could even talk, sent him to a preacher for lessons and help learning some of the old rites. He’s grown up around demons, Dean, and he’s a name-giver or a claircognisant. He can name demons, not the host they’re in, but the actual demon.”
Dean reacts much the same way as Bobby, eyes wide, letting out a whistle. “Dad, that’s. Is it inborn?”
“I don’t know,” John admits. “I didn’t want to ask. But either way, that’s something we could get a lot of use out of. The only thing is, the demons he named? They’re connected to something big.”
There’s a long silence from Dean’s corner of the floor, until he says, “Something big. How big?”
John shakes his head. “Big enough that I’m glad Aurelie gave us those charms. Big enough I called Bobby to see if he was free in case we needed him. Dean, we have to be careful with this one. Bobby said we might be dealing with a fallen seraph on this one.”
“We have to get that kid out of there,” Dean says, no pause required to think that one over. “Shit, Dad. He can’t be safe, even if he’s a name-giver. Maybe especially if he’s a name-giver.”
“His father beats him,” John says, something his mind keeps coming back to. “Gave him a couple broken ribs the last time he went home. I don’t know how the father’s connected, whether he deals with demons as an equal or sold his soul or what, but we have to find a way to get in that house and give the kid a reason to never go back. Between his talent, his knowledge of Latin and the old rites, even the basic Greek he says he has, any hunter would pay to take him on. Hell, we could drop him at the Roadhouse and let him centralise.”
Dean nods, thoughtful. “So,” he says, before taking a sip of Jack and swilling it around his mouth. “We need to get the kid out. We need to figure out where the father fits into this. We need to start taking care of the demons. We need to find out which big-shot’s in town. And why,” he adds. “Without attracting too much attention. That’s a lot of crap. Are you sure we shouldn’t call in Bobby?”
John eyes his son, says, “You’re not usually one to call in backup,” mildly, a little surprised but asking why more than making a statement.
“This isn’t our usual case,” Dean comes back with. “Is there anything we can out-source?”
A knock at the door stops John from answering. He looks at his son, nods as Dean’s pulling out a gun and cocking it, the bottle of bourbon forgotten next to him. John takes out his own gun, loaded with blessed rock-salt rounds, and stands up. Dean gets into position before John’s at the door, and he gives John the go-ahead to open the door.
John does, letting the door swing open to reveal a young woman with black eyes. Both guns are aimed right at her but neither of them shoot. The salt lining the doorway should keep her out, not to mention the normal warding runes John has taped to the door.
“I thank you for taking care of the young master,” the woman says, her voice soft and mellifluous. “He was well-pleased with your offerings. The master would prefer you keep your distance but sends his regards for your thoughtfulness.”
“You mean, he’s grateful I didn’t kidnap him and take him away,” John replies flatly.
The woman smiles, ducks her head the slightest bit. It would be cute if it wasn’t for the eyes. “The master would find his son in a matter of hours, Mr. Winchester, but the inconvenience of doing so would displease him. His tolerance of your presence in this city would, I think, greatly diminish.”
John narrows his eyes and says, “You’re Arioch, aren’t you.”
“And you are very perceptive, Mr. Winchester,” the woman says. “Your reputation precedes you. Marchosias was pleased to find that it does not seem to have been exaggerated.”
“I’ll bet,” John mutters, skin crawling at the memory of Ben’s eyes filled with fear, the normally cocky young man flinched in and terrified. Arioch bows from the waist and turns to leave. “Wait,” John says. The woman, the demon, pauses but doesn’t turn back around to look at John. He’s almost thankful. “Where is Ben tonight?”
The woman laughs, the sound tinkling over the darkened parking lot. “Why, Mr. Winchester. One might think you cared.” She looks over her shoulder, black eyes glinting, and says, voice low, “It’s never a good thing to wish possession of what the master owns. If you want to live long enough to challenge the hierarchy on the young master’s behalf, I suggest you keep your eyes, your hands, and your mind off of him as much as possible. Good night.”
She disappears into the night; John shuts the door and locks it, stands there for a moment then bites off a curse. He turns, looks at his son, who merely says, “Well, that was fucking interesting. What the hell.”
--
John calls Bobby the next morning, puts him to work researching which of the possible fallen both Arioch and Marchosias might be willing to serve. As soon as he hangs up, he calls Ash, gets the computer genius on Ahrenson’s background, because there’s something incredibly shady about the business he’s running. With reluctance, he sends Dean to do some recon on Ahrenson’s house on the edge of town, practically a mansion if the blueprints from the library are still accurate.
Once he’s alone, John takes a deep breath and thinks about the extra charm Aurelie gave him. If there’s one person John doesn’t want to see possessed, it’s Ben, not with the kid’s verve and gift. A demon with the power to see people’s, other demons’ names, it’s not a comforting thought. That draws him up short, though: why hasn’t the kid been possessed already? And what deal does the father have with the demons about Ben? They buy him when he’s on the streets but can’t touch him in the house; Arioch seemed almost as if he served Ben or was on-duty to look after him, but other demons scare Ben to pieces.
There are too many contradictions, so when John leaves the motel, it’s in defiance of Arioch’s warning from the night before.
--
John drives around for a while and doesn’t see Ben, not until he’s moving parallel to the river, towards the bridge. He pulls to a stop on the south side of the river, sees Ben and an older man on the north side, where Ben normally is. John sits in the car and waits, watching, as Ben and the man appear to talk, even argue. When the older man slaps Ben, John gets out of the car in a huff, taking the safety off his gun and stalking down the incline.
“Get away from him,” he calls out, gun aimed at the man and steady in John’s hands. “Now.”
“John, fuck off,” Ben says, voice cheerful and half-friendly though his posture is all wrong, doesn’t match one iota.
John glances at Ben, only a quick eye-flick; all of his attention is on the man. “Sorry, Ben,” he says in return, now right next to the river, close enough so that there’s no way the man could escape a bullet. “Don’t think I can do that at the moment. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“You’re not wanted here, hunter,” the man says, eyes flooding black. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Ben’s shoulders are tight; he hasn’t taken his eyes off of the man next to him. “I’d listen to him if I were you, Winchester.”
John lets his lips curve up the slightest bit as he says, “I’ve never listened well. You Marchosias?” The man grins, showing John his teeth. “Jesus,” John breathes, the demon growling in pain. “How often do you guys switch hosts?”
“As often as we’d like,” Marchosias replies. “Now, I believe the young master told you to fuck off.”
Ben swallows, but just when John thinks the boy’s going to slink away from the demon, Ben steps closer, standing in front of it, between the demon and John’s gun. “John Edward Winchester, this does not concern you. You don’t understand everything that’s going on and therefore you are close to making a serious mistake.”
“So tell me what’s going on,” John retorts. He sees Marchosias move, relines up his shot. The demon places his hands on Ben’s shoulders; though the kid shudders, he doesn’t move away. If anything, he moves backwards, closer to the demon. “Tell me and maybe I’ll agree, maybe I won’t, but at least I’ll understand.”
Marchosias leans down and whispers something in Ben’s ears that has the kid clenching his jaw and turning white, but he nods, once, a sharp, brittle action that looks as if it should be splitting the ground apart with the force of it. Marchosias laughs, then, and calls out, “Oh, Winchester. You’ll never learn, will you?” before the host man throws his head back and the demon emerges from his mouth, spinning into the sky.
The host falls to the ground and Ben steps away from the body gingerly. John has no hope that the human’s still alive -- none of the hosts ever seem to survive the Goetic demons. With a deep breath, trying to keep his nerves from showing, John lets the gun fall to his side and stares at the kid.
“Ben?” he asks. “Can you tell me what’s happening?”
Instead of answering that, Ben says, “Your son got caught at the house.” John’s blood runs cold but he can’t move from the spot. “Markos and I bargained for his safety. He’ll return to you untouched.” Ben stops, then adds, “Don’t send him to the house alone and if you’re that intent on killing yourselves, try breaking in on Monday. My father’s usually out of town during the morning so security is more relaxed.”
“Ben,” John says, confused and halfway to desperate. “What?”
The kid sends John a weary smile, then turns his back and trudges up the hill. John looks up, sees another man, a different man, standing there with ink-black eyes. He’s praying its Arioch, but the man looks down at him and smiles, and John knows its Marchosias.
John shivers, shudders as Ben stops in front of the man and lets the demon wind its hand in his, pull him away. John scrambles up the bank on his side of the river and is climbing into the Impala, watching Ben get into the passenger side of one of those huge SUVs with black-tinted windows. Marchosias gets behind the wheel and drives off, tires spinning and leaving John in seconds. He turns the Impala on, tries to follow, but they lose him in seconds, even with all of his experience in tracking and hunting.
John pulls over, exhales, then punches the steering wheel once before taking out his phone and calling Dean.
“I got some stuff,” Dean says as soon as he answers. He sounds out of breath. “Dad, get back to the motel room, I’ll meet you there and we can.”
“No,” John says, stopping his son mid-sentence. Dean pauses, caught up short, and John asks, slowly, clearly, “Where are you?”
Dean says, “Dad, what,” before he checks himself and says, “I’m on my way back to the room. On the north side of the river, but not by much.”
John turns the car around, asks for cross-streets, and, once Dean tells him, hangs up and drives towards his son.
--
Dean’s leaning against a building, run down and shuttered up, spray-paint on the bricks. He pushes off when the Impala rumbles to a halt next to the curb and slides into the seat. Funny, but even through John’s anger and, he hates to admit, fear, he sees hints of Ben in Dean’s movements, though Dean is all efficiency and wrapped-up bitterness and Ben is all grace and oozing with intelligent ferality.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Dean asks; he has to know that something is.
John’s about ready to yell, so he looks out of the door window and tries to swallow back some of the anger instead. It doesn’t work, not entirely, so he sounds sharp, abrupt, when he says, “They said you got caught at the house. The kid, Ben? He made a bargain with Marchosias so that they’d let you out unharmed.”
Dean pales, whispers, “What did he bargain with?”
“Himself, I think,” John answers, perversely glad to see his son’s upset now, too. “What the hell happened, Dean?”
Dean sinks in the seat, looks down at his hands, the fingers threaded together, white knuckled. “I went to the house,” he starts off. Though it’s taken John years to drum the need for thorough reporting into Dean’s head, he wishes his son would get to the point a little quicker this time. “One of the girls from last night was there; I tossed a little Holy Water in her direction and asked if she’d let me in, show me around. I didn’t think there were any problems, but we get into the kitchen and there are other people in there, just hanging out.”
“How many other people?” John asks.
“Four,” Dean says after a moment’s thought. “Three guys and a girl, all business-types. Anyway, they grabbed me once I got inside the room and just, I dunno, just held me there. I let loose with the Christos and that didn’t do anything ‘cept piss ‘em off. One of them gagged me and a different one, one of the guys, made a phone call but I don’t know who to.” He pauses, then says, thoughtfully, “Y’know, for being held by demons, it wasn’t that bad, actually.”
John scowls, looks away before he can remind Dean just what that safe hostage situation might have cost. “Ben said we should try again Monday,” he says, instead. “Said his father’s usually out of town in the mornings.”
Dean nods once. “All right.”
--
It’s late Saturday before John sees Ben again. Dean’s left town to go on a different hunt, a quick salt-and-burn, and he’s planning on stopping by Bobby’s on the way back to pick some stuff up, books and charms. John’s spent the time driving around town, cleansing all the spots on Ash’s map. He’s kept an eye out for Ben, but, on a hunch, he goes back to the diner for a pre-bedtime slice of pie and sees the kid sitting in one of the corner booths, an older man across from him.
Ben looks up when John walks in, gives John a half-hearted narrow-eyed glare, and the man turns around to see who’s caught Ben’s attention. John nods and the man glares as well, then turns back to Ben. He must ask Ben a question because John sees the kid shrug; John decides to go over there and make sure it’s not Marchosias again.
“Hey, Ben,” John offers in greeting, once he’s closer to the table. He eyes the other man but doesn’t address him at all, won’t until Ben introduces them.
The kid seems to understand, because he rolls his eyes and says, “Alan, this is John Winchester. Winchester, this is Pastor Visser.”
John’s surprised at the man’s identity, uses the surprise to hide how hurt he is at the way Ben’s addressing him, Winchester instead of John. That’s almost more distant, more cold, than telling him to fuck off might be, in comparison to this polite greeting.
“Nice to meet you, Pastor,” John says, holding out his hand.
The other man, Alan, takes it with a firm grip, and nods. “Ben’s said good things about you,” he says. “Can’t say my wife has, but she doesn’t take kindly to any of Ben’s friends.”
John gives the kid a raised eyebrow; he never thought he’d be lumped in with a group of demons, just like he never thought he’d see the day where someone might refer to demons as friends.
“She serves a good piece of pie,” John smiles, shrugs, almost sheepishly. It’s as much an act as anything, and Alan seems to recognise that just as Ben does; one of them grins, one of them scowls.
“The fuck are you doing here, Winchester?” Ben asks, apparently not at all concerned about swearing in front of a minister. “Haven’t you and your son done enough?”
Alan looks between the two, confusion written on his face, and John feels sorry for the guy but he’s not going to take the time to explain. “Not nearly enough good to balance everything else out,” John says, grabbing a chair from the table behind him, swinging it around and straddling it. “’Sides, we thought maybe we’d hang out here, at least until early next week.”
Ben nods even as he wrinkles his nose, getting the unspoken message, and Alan glances between the two of them. He studies Ben and finally says, “I should get going. Claire should be ready to leave by now.” He slides out of the booth, gives John a respectful nod. “Good meetin’ you, John. If you ever need me, I’m on the west side of town, right next to the church.”
John smiles his thanks, waits for the man to walk behind the counter and go through the employee doors, before moving to sit in Alan’s old seat, leaving the chair in the aisle. He looks around as he does so, notes that he and Ben are the only customers in the place.
“I wanted to say thank you,” John says, and by the time he gets to the third word, Ben’s already shaking his head. “What?”
“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” Ben says, before glancing away, out of the window. “You don’t have anything to thank me for.”
John frowns, puzzled. “But you saved Dean,” he argues back. “You bargained with Marchosias for my son; what do you mean, I don’t have anything to thank you for?”
Ben looks at him, and John’s confused by the expression he can see in Ben’s eyes, doesn’t know how to interpret it. “I bargain with demons all the time,” Ben shrugs. “Markos’ price wasn’t anything I haven’t paid before, and this time there was actually something useful to come out of it. Listen,” he goes on, before John has the chance to argue. “John, there are a lot of things you don’t understand here, okay? Just think about what Ari said when he talked to me, when he talked to you, and maybe that’ll clear some of them up.”
Ben stands up and John does as well, intent on keeping the kid with him, here, in the diner where it’s safe, or taking Ben with him back to the motel then out of this town with all of its demons and power plays. “Ben, come on, son,” John starts to say.
“I’m not your fucking son, Winchester,” Ben hisses back, eyes hooded, turning dark but not black, never black. “And with the way you’ve been looking at me, you should be glad of that. Can’t think of what your precious Dean would say, can you?”
John’s pale, shocked, trying to understand what Ben’s saying, and in his pause to muddle through Ben’s words, the kid slips around him and out. John turns, intent on going after Ben, but he sees Ben climb into the black hybrid from before, can’t see the driver or who else might be in the car.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
--
John throws a couple bills on the table, then goes back to the motel to sit down and think about what clues Ben’s given him. He starts off by writing out, as best as he can, the conversation he overheard on the street, then from when Arioch came in the woman’s body to his front door, tries to recall everything that Marchosias said down by the river. Nothing clicks, but then John looks down, over the pieces of paper in front of him, and sees it: young master, the title they called Ben, never once by his name.
John leans back on the bed, ignores the television news program and wonders what that means. Obviously Ahrenson is the ‘master’ they refer to, which only makes sense if the demons are serving him, and why they would do that when John’s beginning to think that Ahrenson might not be possessed, John doesn’t know. Young master, though, might mean either that this is a hereditary title or that Ben’s being groomed for something.
That thought makes John shiver, especially as, the more he thinks about it, the more it starts to click. Arioch’s good at protection, the demonic equivalent of a high-priced bodyguard, and he never seems to leave the kid alone. If he’s protecting Ben and Ben’s in training, he’d have to learn to bargain with demons, to get to know the ins and outs of demonic power plays and hierarchies.
“Shit,” John murmurs. The kid must be in training to be some sort of demonic go-between, some highly prized human. When he’s out on the streets, that’s when he’s learning his lessons, and if he goes home, what, his father’s disappointed? It must mean that Ben’s not learning fast enough, not doing enough to make sure he’s being protected and watched for, so the guy’s disappointed, beats his kid in hopes it’ll serve to cement whichever lesson it is Ben’s having trouble with.
“And the Latin, the rituals, the Greek, it’s all in case he needs to protect himself from an overzealous demon,” John whispers, then looks at the papers again, all of those conversations he transcribed as close to word-for-word as he could. Marchosias, Ben’s bargained with Marchosias a lot; Marchosias is high-enough to protect Ben if shit goes down but John’s willing to bet his favourite gun that Marchosias’ price is pretty damned high as well.
John springs to his feet, is halfway to the door, before he stops. He’s not sure what he’s doing, why he’s leaving or what he hopes to accomplish by doing so, so he goes back to the bed, sits down, and thinks.
He’s coming to realise that his sense of the hunt, of objectivity and focus, has been badly shattered by Ben. Granted, he’s not sure he’s been looking at Ben the way the kid seemed to insinuate, but John won’t deny that there’s something pulling him to Ben, the way he can’t seem to leave Ben alone, goes out looking for him at every opportunity, trusting his word over the facts of the situation.
John rubs his face, decides to take a cold shower and get some sleep. He’ll look at the information again in the morning, see if he can’t dig up some better blueprints for the house and maybe get some recon done before Dean gets back.
He’s in bed, trying to fall asleep, when he wonders if Ben was telling the truth about his father being gone on Mondays, that security will be more relaxed. The kid had no reason to lie, probably hasn’t about any of this, but John just doesn’t know anymore if he can trust that or not.
--
Sleep doesn’t come easily. When it does, it brings along dreams that have John tossing and turning, legs twisted up in blankets, pillows dropping to the floor, limbs flying every which way. He dreams, of Marchosias and Arioch, dreams of a kid with his hands tied above his head, hooked to a low ceiling, back being flayed open, dreams of Dean caught and tortured by demon after demon after demon.
He wakes up in a cold sweat at five in the morning, panting, and can’t get that last image out of his mind, Dean tied down and being carved open, a demon wielding a knife with a sadistic smile, Ben watching with smoky black eyes and a laugh on his lips.
--
Dean gets back late Sunday night, stumbles into the room under the weight of a dozen books. John raises an eyebrow, unspoken question, and Dean drops the books on the chair that neither of them likes to use, shrugs. “Bobby sent me along with these,” he says. “Told me we might need them if we get close enough to the fallen to use them.”
John nods, gets up from where he’s sitting on the bed, and starts paging through them, whistles quietly when he sees the book on the bottom, an old grimoire that no one thinks made it through the Inquisition -- most of the hunters John knows use copies of copies of copies written by people who read the book once and then wrote down what they could remember.
While he’s looking through the books, Dean’s studying the wall; John’s put up every clue, every hint, everything he could find pertaining to the case, and then cross-checked everything, cross-referenced everything, so that the result is a wall of the room covered in paper with string cluttering things up and making spider-web patterns.
John knows the instant that Dean’s stumbled across the most damning evidence yet, because Dean taps a finger on the wall and turns to look at him. “You’re sure about this?” Dean asks, not in doubt but in obvious disbelief at how big this has gotten.
“That house is swarming with demons,” John says, sitting back down, returning to his methodical system of weapons maintenance. Cleaning his weapons, the guns and knives, the crossbows and crucifixes, calms him, centres him, and John’s gratified to know it does for Dean as well. “I went back earlier today and counted at least nineteen different possessed humans at any given time. The demons there, though, they swarm, travel between hosts with an ease I’ve never seen before. There’s no telling how many there really are.”
Dean grimaces, shakes his head. “That’s fucking ridiculous,” he says. “Nineteen and there might be more? Don’t they know it’s never a good thing to group in one place?”
John grins, showing his teeth, and says, “If not, they’ll learn.”
--
They both catch a few hours of sleep and leave early on Monday, an hour before the sun’s even thinking about coming up. The ride to the house takes about half an hour, way on the north end of town, near the edge where cornfields are starting to creep in between the houses and the streets intersect at straight right angles. John’s letting Dean drive, is taking the opportunity to look around and get another layout of the land. They park a mile back from the house, pull off of the road and onto a little ditch between cornstalks, hide the car as best they can.
John’s got his two favourite guns and his favourite knife, as well as a smaller, shorter dagger strapped around one ankle if things get desperate, and his pockets are stuffed with Holy Water, chalk, and rosaries. Neither of them are entirely sure how useful the Christian elements will be between Marchosias’ reaction and those of the demons in the house who took Dean, but better safe than sorry. He looks over, sees that Dean’s stocking up as well, has an implacable look on his face that says that the demons inside of the house won’t get the drop on him this time.
With a nod at one another, they leave the relative safety of the Impala and her devil’s traps and move towards the house like silent ghosts.
--
The back of the property is covered with trees. John and Dean use the tree cover to slip closer to the house, hopefully unseen. No one’s set off an alarm, and John doesn’t see the guards that were patrolling yesterday, so John’s keeping his fingers crossed that they’ll at least be able to make it to the back door.
When they get close enough, John tells Dean to wait and cover him; before his son can argue, John’s crouch-running to the back door and moulding his body to the brick, peering around the edge of a full floor-to-ceiling glass window. He can see people inside, makes the educated guess that they’re all possessed, and does a quick head-count: five there, watching television and lounging, completely off-guard. He moves back, flashes a couple hand signs at Dean, who sees them and nods, jaw clenched.
The lock in the back door turns; John freezes, sees Dean duck and take aim behind a large bush. With careful, quiet movements, John shifts his gun to one hand and takes out a vial of Holy Water, uncapping the lid and getting ready to dump it on to who- or whatever steps outside.
Door open, John waits for the barest hint of movement before dumping the entire vial out on the person. He’s expecting screams, hissing, the sound of burning flesh, the end of their surprise advantage, but all he hears is a muffled, “You are such a clueless ass, Winchester.”
John frowns, looks down and sees Ben there, standing with hands on hips and glaring at him, shaking wet hair out of his face. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re a hunter,” Ben says with a shrug. “Figured you’d come today, even if I tried to warn you off, ‘specially after what you said Saturday. You’re just lucky I wasn’t one of them. Holy Water doesn’t affect them all; if I were you, I’d kill the host and wait for the demon to leave in search of a new one. It’s quieter.”
Dean’s taken the chance and slipped up over the patio while John and Ben were talking, is on the other side of the door with two guns out, not bothering with Holy Water or any of the dozen rosaries the two hunters are carrying between them.
“You gonna give us up?” Dean asks in a harsh whisper.
Ben turns around and gives Dean some kind of look, doesn’t even dignify the question with an answer. He turns back to John, says, “Look, if you really want to go inside, fine. My father’s study is on the lower level, near the front; there’s a big window in there that you can leave out of. Five of them are in the TV room, six are in the kitchen, and most of the rest are upstairs, still asleep.”
“What about the ones who aren’t?” Dean asks, pushing when John wishes he really wouldn’t.
“They’re in the basement,” Ben answers, without looking at Dean. “Which is where I’ll be, so don’t expect any more help from me. Once you’re in the house, you’re on your own.”
John tilts his head the slightest bit, looks at Ben, and reaches in his front pocket, pulls out the last of Aurelie’s charms. “Put this on,” he says, holding it out to Ben. “It’ll save you from possession. You won’t have to worry about any of them burrowing their way inside of you.”
Ben grins, wide and carefree. “John, John, John,” he sing-song whispers. “You think my father would let them do that?” Ben turns around, heads back inside, leaving the back door open. When John follows a split-second later, the charm tucked back in his pocket, the kid’s already out of sight.
--
John keeps his gun loose in his hand, ready for anything, and his ears are peeled for any sound or movement. Dean’s behind him, tracking his footsteps and watching their rear; they make it to the study without being caught.
Dean immediately closes and locks the door, starts ransacking desk drawers and file cabinets. John, though, is caught by a map on the wall, behind glass, pins stuck all over the country. There’s one red-tipped pin in Kansas that has him worried, right in the heart of Lawrence, and at least one of the same colour in about half of the continental states. A few more, yellow-tipped, litter the country, with most of the bigger cities sporting at least half a dozen green pins. John’s not sure what they all mean but he knows he doesn’t like them.
He’s got a camera out, is taking pictures of the map as a whole before taking close-ups of the cities, when he stops, caught dead by a scream. The sound echoes through the house, says everything of pain and torture, and it rings in his bones for a long moment before another comes, then another.
John’s half-turned, because he knows the sound of that voice, knows it’s Ben in the basement, probably keeping demons busy so they don’t come up and catch him and Dean, but he stops himself, turns back to the map and the task at hand.
“Dad,” Dean whispers, frozen over by the large file cabinet in the corner, crouched and picking the lock on the bottom drawer.
“Focus on what we’re here for,” John orders, ignoring the way his voice shakes as another scream almost interrupts him.
Dean swallows audibly but does as he’s told.
Ben’s still screaming when they open the window and slip out of it, running full-tilt across the landscaped lawn into the nearest cornfield.
--
Part Three