Principalities and Powers (PG-13)
This part picks up immediately after Living History, so you should probably read that first if you haven't yet. (And my apologies for the two erroneous posts earlier--LJ doesn't like me sometimes!)
Summary: A hunt finally finds the boys on their home turf... but Cazadore has some surprises in store for just about everyone.
Principalities and Powers
by Enola Jones and San Antonio Rose
The phone picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” came the familiar, warm voice of Pastor Jim.
“Hey, Pastor Jim. It’s Dean. We’ve got a problem.”
“What can I do for you, Dean? Is Sammy okay? Your father hasn’t-”
“No, Sammy’s fine, but one of his friends isn’t. I think he’s possessed.” And he explained what Daphne had told him.
Jim was silent for a long few minutes, then he released his breath in a long sigh. “I’m at least a week away. Caleb’s a few hours from you and Rufus and Bobby are in Huntsville. They can be there the fastest. Bobby has one of those new phones that travel in your pocket. Here’s the number.”
Dean grabbed a notepad and pen, scribbled down the phone number, and repeated it back to Jim to make sure he had it right.
“That’s it. I’m heading to North Carolina to head off your father. Rumor is he has a lead on you two and I want to make sure he doesn’t get to you.”
Dean cursed with his hands-of all the things they didn’t need. “Okay. Thanks, Pastor Jim.”
“I’ll call you in a few days, son.”
“Okay. We’ll keep you posted.”
As he hung up, Sammy asked, “What was with that string of profanity?”
Dad, Dean signed sharply.
Stunned, Sammy answered in kind. What Dad do now?
Nothing yet. Jim says might find us, goes to stop him.
Good. Never want to see again.
Dean’s only answer to that was a hug.
Sammy hugged back. “Why can’t he just leave us alone? We’re happy.”
Dean felt his heart warm. “He doesn’t know that, Sammy. He’s just... he’s confused.”
Of course, they both knew that to the Jefferson County deputies, ‘confused’ was code for ‘crazy.’
Sammy slowly tilted his head up to meet Dean’s eyes. Few more years, Dean realized, and the kid would probably be taller than he was. “I’m not. Not anymore.”
Dean hugged him tight again.
“Call that number he gave you. I’m gonna unpack.”
Dean gave him another quick squeeze and pounded his back before letting go. Okay. Love you, Sammy.
Sammy shot him the one-handed ‘I love you’ sign before he jogged up the stairs with their duffels.
Dean blew the air out of his cheeks and picked up the phone to call Bobby.
Unseen by either brother, their angelic guardian stood just inside the front door but was startled when a hand gave the back of his neck a friendly squeeze. “Well done, little brother.”
“Well done?” he hissed softly. “The boy is possessed.”
“And Bobby and Rufus will be here in a matter of hours, and then he won’t be possessed. But you heard Sammy. They’re happy. That’s the way Dad wants them to be.”
The young angel sighed. “Such the simplest of things, to be happy. Such the hardest of things for humans. I did not realize that removing John Winchester from the picture would make this much of a difference.”
“It might not have if Dean weren’t so committed to making things better. Sammy’s a good kid, demon blood or not. He needs a guardian who’ll see that and help him flourish.” The archangel paused. “I think they were already headed that way in April, but this trip just sealed the deal. And it had the added advantage of keeping them out of town long enough for other people to notice a change in Josh that Sammy might not have spotted right away.”
“I know... I know we aren’t supposed to want....” He fell silent, and his brother could see in his eyes he was terrified that his desiring something meant he had fallen.
The archangel smiled kindly. “Say it, bro. You’re fine.”
“I wish... I want there... I want there to be some way that demon blood would not taint the child. He is so young, brother.”
“I know. I’m workin’ on it. And I don’t know yet if there’s a way to get rid of the demon blood-but I’ve got a feeling that if anyone can raise that boy right, to the point that he’s not going to fall prey to Azazel’s temptations, it’ll be Dean. And he’ll do it here.” The archangel smirked. “And we’re gonna help him.”
His younger brother beamed at him. “Thank you for allowing me to assist.”
“Assist, nothing. We’re a team, Castiel. That’s how Dad wants it... and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“We are a team-” Castiel turned to face the seventeen-year-old on the phone. “And they are a team. Symmetry.”
Gabriel chuckled. “You’re small, but all brain.”
“Then we have work to do.”
“That we do, little brother. And so do they.”
Into Dean’s ear, Bobby was saying, “Stay inside the house. We’re only two hours out. Soon as Rufus gets his ass back here, we’ll be heading your way.”
“Anything we need to do in the meantime?” Dean asked.
“If he shows up, don’t engage him.”
“Lay low, pretend we’re not home?”
“Yeah. Where the hell have you been?” Rufus’s voice was a murmur in the background. “Never mind! The boys need us yesterday.”
Dean chuckled in spite of himself.
Two hours later, as promised, Bobby and Rufus pulled up outside the Winchester house. All was quiet... perhaps too quiet.
And Dean decided he needed to stop listening to Riders Radio Theater if his internal narration was going to get that cheesy.
The older hunters walked onto the porch and Bobby knocked twice. Then knocked twice again. Dean let them in, and Sammy greeted them each with a cup of holy water.
They knocked it back and Rufus grinned at him, putting a hand on top of his head. “Damn, boy, you’re sproutin’!”
Sammy wrinkled his nose, and Dean laughed. “I swear he grew two inches while we were gone!”
“Only one,” Sammy replied. Then he all but ran over and threw his arms around the other man. “Uncle Bobby... it’s Josh.”
Bobby hugged him back. “I know, son. Dean told me, and we’ve talked to that girl Daphne. Sounds like there’s more to the story than she told y’all, too-boy’s been caught torturing cats and generally actin’ out in ways that have a lot of people worried about him. Most folks seem to be writin’ it off as him just bein’ 13, but Daphne saw his eyes turn.”
“Why do they turn black, Uncle Bobby?”
“In general? Nobody really knows. In particular? Daphne said Tricia’d taken the Lord’s name in vain. Demon hears the name of Christ in any language, it flinches and reveals its true nature in the host’s eyes.”
Pensive, Sammy looked at Dean, and amazingly they signed in perfect unison that they wondered if ASL would do it as well.
“Okay,” Rufus said, pointing. “That? That’s just damned eerie.”
The others laughed.
“To answer your question,” Bobby said, “I wouldn’t know. Most hunters just say ‘Christo,’ but there aren’t many deaf or mute hunters out there. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work, though.”
“Secret weapon!” Sammy laughed.
“Knew it would come in handy,” Dean replied, fully intending the pun.
Bobby gently cuffed him on the back of the head for the pun. Dean staggered exaggeratedly. As he intended, Sammy laughed.
“Seriously, though, Bobby,” Dean continued, “what do we need to do?”
“We need to get him here, get him in a devil’s trap and exorcise the hell outta him.”
Rufus snorted. “NOW who’s makin’ with the pungent puns, Singer?”
“Oh, bite me.”
The boys snickered.
Rufus clapped his hands together. “In the meanwhile, got any food hereabouts? I’m starvin’!”
“You just ate an hour ago!” Bobby pointed out.
“Yeah! I’m starvin’!”
Sammy rolled his eyes and headed into the kitchen. “This way, Mr. Turner.”
“Rufus, please. Or Uncle Rufus’ll do fine.”
“Yes, sir. What would you like, Rufus? I think Daphne said she left us some lasagna....”
“Ooohhh, that sounds great.”
As Rufus followed Sammy into the kitchen, Dean turned back to Bobby. “There’s one thing I don’t get. Why Josh? Does this demon have some special interest in Sammy?”
Bobby was at a sudden loss. How much should he tell him?
Finally, he sighed. “Listen, Dean, there’s a lot I don’t know for sure. But your daddy... he’s got some theories. About your mom. About Sammy. And if I had to make a guess, I’d say it does want something with Sammy. What, exactly, I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t, or won’t?”
“Couldn’t,” Bobby said honestly.
“Bobby....”
“Son, I swear, I don’t know for sure. Demons lie. Sometimes they get mouthy. Sometimes hunters put more stock in their answers than they should. And I don’t just mean your daddy.”
Suddenly Dean realized why their father had always been harder on Sammy than on him. “You don’t... you don’t think this demon’s the only one that’s got it in for Sammy, do you?”
“What do you mean?” Bobby asked, frowning.
Dean sighed; he wasn’t always good at explaining himself out loud, but Bobby didn’t know enough ASL for him not to try. “We’ll get rid of this one, right? But if it found us, so could others, if it’s not working alone.” He paused. “I guess what I’m asking is, how do we keep Sammy safe? We’re not moving again, not until we both finish school.”
“Lemme think on that one, okay, son?”
Dean nodded. “One thing at a time. Okay.” He thought for a moment. “Josh wouldn’t come up on the porch, which means he knows there’s a devil’s trap there. Do we force him into it anyway, or should we set up some others in places he won’t expect?”
“We set it up in places he wouldn’t expect.”
“And then...” Dean hated to ask, but he had to. “Do we get Sammy to play bait?”
“Yeah,” Sammy said from the doorway. “I’ll do it if I have to.”
Dean turned to him. “You sure? I mean, I don’t want to put you in danger....”
“Dean, how else are we gonna know if he’s caught?”
Dean sighed. You right. I not like.
“Keep an eye on me, then. What if we set it up at the soccer field or someplace like that, where nobody’ll think it’s weird that you’re there? Or the garage, maybe?”
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Bobby interrupted. “Mercer owes me a favor or five.”
Dean nodded slowly, pondering the layout of the garage. “Then you and Rufus can be in the office, and I can be showing Sammy something on one of the cars while we wait.”
That wouldn’t seem suspicious. Sammy had really gotten interested in the mechanics of engines since he had watched a shuttle land on TV over the summer before. He was still better at theory than practice, but hey, baby steps. Besides, it was giving him a good start on applied physics, so he’d be in good shape when he got to the physics class in high school, assuming that they had a competent AP science teacher by then. ’Cause, really, honestly-Mrs. Phillips sucked.
Bobby nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Mind if I use your phone, boys?”
Dean nodded and gestured toward it.
When 2:00 rolled around the next day, Dean was surprised at how busy the garage was. Unfortunately, that meant there’d be witnesses; fortunately, it also meant that there was a good car he could park under the devil’s trap Bobby and Rufus had painted over the maintenance bay. Sammy had called Josh the night before and arranged to meet him there before going off to play video games, so the stage was set.
When Josh rode his bike up, Leo started bringing the bystanders into the back of the garage, one at a time, on the pretext of a contract dispute. Really, under Mercer’s direction, he was getting them out of the way.
Sammy, meanwhile, was genuinely engrossed in the discussion he was having with Dean about the car, so he didn’t realize Josh had arrived until he heard someone shout his name over the noise of the shop fans.
Dean squeezed his arm, his eyes communicating it all. ASL wasn’t all hand gestures-eyes and expressions said a lot as well.
Sammy blinked his understanding and straightened. “Hey, Josh! Come check this out-Dean’s just been explaining this... what’d you call it?”
“Manifold,” Dean answered with a smile.
Josh rolled his eyes. “Man, what are you doin’ starin’ at cars? I thought you wanted to check out Super Mario 64.”
“I do, but this is cool. Come look.” Sammy grinned. “Dean can make a car sing,” he finished.
Dean grinned back at him. “Yeah, Josh, come check this out. It’s the kind of thing every red-blooded American male needs to know.”
Josh huffed, but since no genuine 13-year-old boy who thought of himself as a red-blooded American male would tolerate an implied challenge to his masculinity and the demon needed to maintain his cover, he walked over to the maintenance bay.
Sammy pointed out things to him for a moment; then Dean straightened and took a step back. He moved his hands like he was going to wipe them, but then the right one curved into a C and touched his left shoulder, then his right hip, tracing the form of a sash. Christ.
He was only in Josh’s peripheral vision, but the demon still flinched.
Catching Sammy’s eye, he signed quickly, ASL works. Then he tossed his rag over the boys’ heads to hit the office window, the signal for Bobby and Rufus to come out. They came out at a walk, not a run.
Sammy saw them and backed away from the car casually. “Oh, hey, Uncle Bobby, Uncle Rufus.”
“Uncle Bobby! Uncle Rufus!” Dean grinned, walking over. “Thought you were here today!”
“Boys,” Bobby nodded. “Who’s your friend, Sammy?”
“This is Josh!” Sammy grinned. “Josh, c’mere and say hi to my uncles!”
Josh huffed again. “Hi, Sammy’s uncles. Dude, can we just go? It’s hot.” He turned and tried to walk away from the car... and ran into an unseen wall.
“Got a problem there, Josh?” Rufus asked calmly.
And four sets of eyes were suddenly on Josh.
Josh tried again to walk away and again stopped short. Then he rounded on Sammy, his eyes a furious black from corner to corner. “How dare you!”
“How dare I?” Sammy erupted. “How dare you!”
“You betrayed me!”
“You are hurting my friend! Did you seriously think I wouldn’t know?”
“You’re thirteen! Your fool of a brother keeps you in the dark!”
Dean had to stop Sammy from lunging at Josh. “Demons lie,” he hissed in Sammy’s ear.
And suddenly, Josh couldn’t speak. He clawed at his throat, but it did no good.
Sammy turned to look at Dean. “You don’t-do you?” he whispered.
Never, Dean signed. We brothers. We partners. No secrets.
It wants you angry, came a quiet thought from somewhere else.
Josh frowned deeply at the strange hand movements.
You calm, Dean signed. It wants you angry, it shows you that.
Don’t give in, continued the quiet voice in the back of Sammy’s mind. You’d only hurt your friend if you fought. Listen to Dean.
Sam listened-to both the voice and to his brother. His shoulders relaxed and he nodded.
“What is this?” Josh snarled. “What’s going on here? Why-”
“Exorcisamus te,” Rufus interrupted.
Josh gasped.
“Tell us!” Dean yelled. “Tell us why you’re here!”
“Why is there-” Josh’s question was choked off by Rufus’ reciting the next clause of the exorcism.
“Why are you here?” Dean demanded again.
“No!”
Rufus recited the next clause.
“Better talk, idjit,” said Bobby, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
Rufus got about halfway through the exorcism before Josh finally gasped out, “Boy King. I was sent to watch the Boy King!”
“Boy King?” Dean and Sammy chorused. “What do you mean?”
“Sammy-he’s-NO, I can’t tell you!”
Rufus continued.
“TALK, dammit!” Dean cried.
“He’ll kill me!”
“Who sent you?” Bobby thundered.
Josh choked and wheezed and finally gasped out, “Azazel! His name is Azazel!”
“What does he want with me?” Sammy bellowed.
“WHY IS THERE AN A-” Josh choked again.
Answer him, a voice small as the breeze but powerful as thunder shook inside Josh’s skull. And say nothing of me.
“Chosen,” Josh squeaked. “You’re his favorite. You’re our leader. Please, he’ll kill me-or worse-I don’t know any more!”
Stunned, Sammy and Dean both staggered back until they ran smack into Bobby’s chest.
Bobby and Rufus exchanged a look. Bobby nodded, putting his arms around the Winchesters, and Rufus finished the exorcism. The demon came out with a shriek in a cloud of black smoke and disappeared through the floor of the garage; Josh toppled forward, and Rufus hurried to catch him.
“... the hell was that?” asked a strange voice from behind the hunters. They turned to see Daphne’s dad standing there.
Dean blinked. “Mr. Vaughn? What brings you here?”
“Heard the Robichaux boy’d been seen up here and wanted to catch him, tell him to stay away from Daphne.” Mr. Vaughn looked at Bobby. “Are you the man who called yesterday?”
“Yes, sir. Bobby Singer. My partner, Rufus Turner.”
Rufus spared him a nod and went back to checking Josh’s vital signs. “He’ll be okay,” he announced after a moment. “Probably on the traumatized side, but he’ll recover just fine. We’re lucky Daphne and Tricia caught him so early.”
“How much did you hear?” Bobby asked warily.
Mr. Vaughn shook his head. “Just screams, and then I saw that... whatever it was come out of the boy.” He frowned. “He-he wasn’t possessed, was he?”
“You look like a smart man, Vaughn. What do you think?”
Mr. Vaughn looked at Josh’s unconscious form again and ran a hand over his mouth and chin. “Everyone said they didn’t think he was the type to go off the deep end like he did. Never in trouble, never known to play around with the occult or drugs or anything like that.” He met Bobby’s eyes once more. “That could have been my Daphne.”
Bobby didn’t reply.
“Mr. Singer... you must know what the rumor mill is like in a small town. Word’s going to get out. Parents will panic. We need to know: how do we keep this from happening again?”
“This ain’t the kind of thing you can unlearn,” said Rufus. “Once you know what’s out there, there’s no goin’ back to normal.”
“We need to know the truth, Mr. Turner,” Mr. Vaughn insisted. “It’s a quiet town, a safe town. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Please, just teach us what we need to know to defend ourselves, our kids.”
“No guarantee another demon’ll show up anytime soon,” Bobby noted. “And Dean and Sammy plan to be here for a few more years yet.”
Mr. Vaughn’s chin raised slightly in defiance. “This is Texas, Mr. Singer. We don’t wait around for the cavalry. Most of us know how to defend against human attackers; we just need to know how to defend against non-human ones.”
Bobby looked at Rufus, who smiled slightly. Then he released the boys and walked up to Mr. Vaughn.
“You can start,” he said, “by callin’ me Bobby.”
When Leo came back inside with the other customers, he took one look at Dean’s shell-shocked face and told him to take the rest of the day off. Bobby answered the others’ concern about Josh with a cover story about his having had a seizure, and Mr. Vaughn helped Rufus bundle Josh into the back seat of the Impala while Bobby steered Dean and Sammy outside. Sammy sat in the back with Josh, Dean in the front with Bobby, and Rufus took his truck back to the house while Bobby drove the Impala to get Josh home.
Josh’s eyes fluttered open just as Bobby deposited him on the couch in his own living room. Sammy was at his side immediately.
“Hey, Sammy,” Josh whispered.
“Hey, Josh,” Sammy said, carding his hand through Josh’s hair. “You okay?”
Josh nodded slightly. “Will be. That was freaky.” His eyes slid over to Bobby. “Thank you.”
Bobby nodded.
“How...” Sammy bit his lip. “How much do you remember?”
“All of it.” Josh shuddered.
“How’d it get you?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know, sir. Was just out ridin’ my bike the other night, and all of a sudden this patch of fog just... jumped me.”
Dean looked at Bobby. “How do we protect them if the demons are gonna just jump people?”
Bobby sighed. “There’s some protective amulets out there. I’ll have to do a little research to see if I can get enough for everybody.”
“My dad’s a jeweler,” said Josh. “Maybe he could make some.”
Bobby’s eyes went huge at that. “Maybe he could.”
Sammy chewed on his lip for a moment before asking, “Josh... there was something the demon was trying to ask. Do... do you know what it was?”
Josh closed his eyes wearily. “Said a lot of freaky s-stuff, man. I dunno what was true and what wasn’t.”
Sammy patted his shoulder. “Rest, man, okay?”
Josh nodded, and Sammy started to get up. Then Josh opened his eyes again and said, “There’s one thing I know isn’t true, though. You’re not that Boy King of Hell or whatever. You’re cool. And I’m glad you’re my friend.”
Sammy’s face broke into that huge, dimpled smile that he only got when he was genuinely happy. “Thanks, Josh.”
Josh returned the smile and fell asleep.
Once they were outside on the porch, Dean looked up at Bobby. “Uncle Bobby? The whole town?”
Bobby nodded. “Only way to be sure.”
Emotional, Dean slid to Sign. You teach Dad. You teach us. But a TOWN.
“Rufus’ll help. And I want you boys in on it, too.”
But where- Dean stopped signing as he and Sammy looked at each other with the same realization.
“The football stadium,” they chorused aloud.
Bobby nodded. The stadium it was.
It took the better part of a week to make all the arrangements and gather all the materials needed for the crash course Bobby and Rufus had planned, which meant that the town meeting would fall on Saturday, August 10. In that time, Josh recovered enough to tell a few concerned friends what had happened, being very careful to edit out the parts about the demon’s motive, its beliefs about Sammy, and the figure in the background that the demon had sworn was an angel. Naturally, the story did spread all over town and grew in the telling, but never in a way that made Sammy or Dean look bad; that much was a relief.
The fact that Mr. Robichaux delivered a carload of boxes of something to the Winchesters and their ‘uncles’ did raise some eyebrows, though.
The sheer size of the crowd shocked the hunters when they arrived at the stadium. Daphne and Tricia, who had drafted Daphne’s family to help with the setup, met the hunters at the concession stand and reported that from what they could tell, apart from a few of the most vocal of the local skeptics, practically the entire town had turned out. The home stands were packed, and quite a few people were sitting in the visitors’ stands as well.
The principal introduced Bobby and Rufus. Bobby took the microphone and nodded to Daphne, Tricia, and the boys to start distributing the necklaces Mr. Robichaux had made: an iron pentangle surrounded by a silver sunburst, hung on a chain made of iron and silver wires twisted together. Each jewelry box also had a small card inside the lid with the exorcism from the Rituale Romanum printed on it in both Latin and English.
One woman took one look at the pendant and cried “WITCHCRAFT!”
That elicited a murmur of concern from the United Pentecostals and snickers from the goths in another part of the stands.
“No, ma’am,” Bobby replied calmly. “King Solomon found that the pentangle knot was a token of truth and one of the best signs to protect against demons-as long as the star stands on its own two feet, like the Lone Star of Texas.”
Mollified, the woman slid it on.
“Now, some of you kids might think it’s edgy to wear this thing upside down,” Bobby continued, addressing the goths. “But if you do that, it won’t just not work; it’ll invite a demon to possess you. And believe me when I say that you do not want to go playin’ around with the forces of Hell. I’ve been fightin’ ’em for over twenty years, Rufus for longer’n that. Demons are not your friends, and the Devil is not the lord you want to serve. He genuinely does want only to steal, to kill, and to destroy.”
A few of the goths still snickered, but several of them sobered as they put on their pendants. And Bobby could see Dean, as well as several of the uniformed deputies, making a mental note of which kids to watch for potential trouble should they get hold of the wrong grimoire.
“Why not a cross or a crucifix?” someone else called.
Rufus took the microphone to answer. “Sometimes that does work, but this case is one where it wouldn’t have. If the demons are trying to start the Apocalypse, there are some rules they’ll start to ignore, especially the stronger ones. Now, most of what we’re gonna teach you tonight will protect you against your garden-variety demon, but they might not hold up if one of the big dogs gets loose. But there are some defenses even Lilith can’t break, and that anti-possession charm is one of ’em.”
There was some general murmuring at that.
“Look, folks, this ain’t rocket surgery. It’s not like you’ve gotta run around scared all the time or do some elaborate rituals to stay safe. And it’s not ‘occult’ except in the sense that it’s not common knowledge. We’re just here to show you some basic steps to protect your home and family, just like you would set up a security system to keep out burglars. A lot of this stuff also works on ghosts and other things that go bump in the night.”
“You could think of it as bein’ like a firewall on your computer, if you’ve got AOL,” Bobby added. “You don’t even have to think about it most of the time, just set it up and let it keep the bad stuff from getting inside.”
Once the kids had finished handing out the anti-possession charms, they went around again (take-one-pass-’em-down style) with a packet of notes and illustrations while Bobby and Rufus explained the basics. While Bobby ran through the introduction he’d prepared, Rufus suddenly caught sight of an older man who was arriving late. He couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but something about the guy was suspicious. So he kept an eye on him while Bobby explained the effect of the name of Christ on demons.
Even from fifty yards away, Rufus could see the guy flinch.
Rufus signaled to Dean, who noted the man’s location and nodded, then signed something to Sammy and Daphne. They were planning to have volunteers come out of the crowd at various points anyway; now it looked like they’d have a live demonstration.
The man was volunteered forward a few moments later.
Once he got up onto the stage, Bobby stated, “Now, to give y’all an idea of how this works, let’s say this gentleman-what’s your name, sir?”
“Harold.”
“Let’s say Harold here starts acting suspicious, and I want to make sure he isn’t possessed. But there might not be a good way for me to work ‘Christo’ into the conversation.”
Bobby was deliberately looking away from Harold, but he could hear a few murmurs from the crowd.
“Any name of God would work. I could act excited and be all, ‘Oh, dear God!’” Which was what Tricia had done.
The murmurs grew.
“But say I want to be a little more subtle.” He picked up the glass of water from the podium, took a drink, and turned to Harold. “Here, Harold, care for a drink of water?”
“Uh... no... not really thirsty.”
“Aw, c’mon, it’s still 95 out here! You’ve got to be at least a little thirsty.”
“I... I’m really not, I swear.”
To the side, just in his peripheral vision, Sam signed ‘Jesus’.
There were some audible gasps when Harold’s eyes flashed black this time.
“Going once... going twice...” And Bobby threw the holy water squarely in Harold’s face.
Harold screamed. His flesh steamed and his hands covered his face. Everyone gasped, and not a few people leapt to their feet.
“Holy water, ladies and gentlemen,” Bobby explained, strolling away from Harold.
Harold was breathing hard, and he gasped out, “You think you’re so smart!”
Bobby smirked. “I know I am.”
Harold lunged-and slammed into an invisible barrier.
“You see, Harold, Rufus and I, we weren’t convinced Josh was the only person in this town who was possessed. We work in pairs; figures you might work in pairs. So we took a little extra precaution tonight.
“Folks, if you’ll turn to page 3 of your handout, you’ll see a drawing labeled ‘Devil’s Trap.’ Now, Rufus drew one of those under the stage this morning, and Harold is standing in it right now. You can see for yourselves how effective it is.”
Harold roared and slammed against the edge of the trap over and over.
Josh winced, remembering.
“And this,” continued Rufus, “is as good a time as any to introduce you folks to the text that’s on page 4. It goes like this:”
Rufus read the exorcism, and Harold began to scream again. When it was over, black smoke poured out of his mouth and went down into the earth. Harold collapsed.
Immediately, two of the EMTs in the audience rushed toward the stage while Bobby checked Harold’s vital signs. There was a rumble of hushed conversation among the other people in the stands, and Bobby turned off his mike long enough to speak to the EMTs before they hurried him off to the ER.
“I don’t understand,” someone called down from the stands before Bobby could resume the lecture. “Harold’s a nice guy-heck, I just saw him in church last Sunday!”
“Like I said,” Rufus shrugged, “they don’t always play by the rules.”
“You protect your kids against every other kind of predator,” Bobby added, “and even though this is a pretty safe town, you know that evil people don’t always look evil. Same goes for demons. That’s why we’re here, to show you what to do.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable, reflective silence. But when Bobby picked up his spiel where he’d left off, every eye was on him.
Rufus then took over again. “Now, again, we’re not trying to make you all paranoid. There is nothing in this but the same kind of protection you would take against any other predator.”
It wasn’t long before Dean noticed more and more people jotting notes in the margins of their handouts. Apparently the practical demonstration, while (mostly) unexpected, had proven Bobby and Rufus’ point. And it was at about the same time that Bobby and Rufus both hit their lecturing stride.
Once they’d gone over the theory behind the first few pages of the handout, they had the crowd read through the exorcism several times until most people’s East Texas twang wouldn’t corrupt their pronunciation of the Latin. Rufus made sure to stress the importance of drawing the devil’s traps and protective sigils exactly the way they were shown in the handout. They spoke of salt as wards, and Dean noted the owner of the feed store suddenly writing down something in the palm of his hand.
And, just to make sure they weren’t going too fast, Bobby stopped every half hour to review and take questions, a strategy Dean had suggested based on his own teaching experience. The questions were intelligent. People grasped quickly that this really was to protect the town and its children from what happened to Josh. And even the most smart-alecky goths took the instruction seriously, although Dean couldn’t tell what they planned to do with the information.
At last, the crowd broke up and one or two people came down onto the field to ask more in-depth questions.
Watching the cars drive away into the night, Dean signed to Sammy, What have we done?
Good, I hope, Sammy signed back.
Yes good, Daphne chimed in. We safer now. We know.
No, Dean signed. Bad. Destroyed innocence.
Sammy sighed. “Dean... it’s not gonna stop. You know that.”
Dean’s eyes closed and he nodded.
“I mean, even the Shire had to fight evil on its own doorstep,” Sammy continued, trying for an analogy he thought Dean might understand. “Maybe it won’t be any worse here than the Battle of Bywater, but... the battle’s still likely to come, sooner or later.”
Best to go in with our eyes open and our swords sharp, Dean replied.
“All David had was a sling and five stones,” Daphne added, “but that was enough to take down the giant. And when you’ve got two thousand people with slingshots and stones....”
“It’s a whole damn town of Davids,” Dean breathed aloud.
Sammy and Daphne grinned at each other. It was a pretty damned good start.
Later that night, Josh knelt beside his bed and prayed quietly, “Hey, if the angel I saw is listening... look, um... I know we’re not really supposed to pray to angels, but-I thought I should say-I’m not gonna tell.”
Thank you, breathed the barest whisper in the back of his mind.
He thought he felt a hand ruffle his hair... but when he turned to look, no one was there.
Summary: A hunt finally finds the boys on their home turf... but Cazadore has some surprises in store for just about everyone.
Principalities and Powers
by Enola Jones and San Antonio Rose
The phone picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” came the familiar, warm voice of Pastor Jim.
“Hey, Pastor Jim. It’s Dean. We’ve got a problem.”
“What can I do for you, Dean? Is Sammy okay? Your father hasn’t-”
“No, Sammy’s fine, but one of his friends isn’t. I think he’s possessed.” And he explained what Daphne had told him.
Jim was silent for a long few minutes, then he released his breath in a long sigh. “I’m at least a week away. Caleb’s a few hours from you and Rufus and Bobby are in Huntsville. They can be there the fastest. Bobby has one of those new phones that travel in your pocket. Here’s the number.”
Dean grabbed a notepad and pen, scribbled down the phone number, and repeated it back to Jim to make sure he had it right.
“That’s it. I’m heading to North Carolina to head off your father. Rumor is he has a lead on you two and I want to make sure he doesn’t get to you.”
Dean cursed with his hands-of all the things they didn’t need. “Okay. Thanks, Pastor Jim.”
“I’ll call you in a few days, son.”
“Okay. We’ll keep you posted.”
As he hung up, Sammy asked, “What was with that string of profanity?”
Dad, Dean signed sharply.
Stunned, Sammy answered in kind. What Dad do now?
Nothing yet. Jim says might find us, goes to stop him.
Good. Never want to see again.
Dean’s only answer to that was a hug.
Sammy hugged back. “Why can’t he just leave us alone? We’re happy.”
Dean felt his heart warm. “He doesn’t know that, Sammy. He’s just... he’s confused.”
Of course, they both knew that to the Jefferson County deputies, ‘confused’ was code for ‘crazy.’
Sammy slowly tilted his head up to meet Dean’s eyes. Few more years, Dean realized, and the kid would probably be taller than he was. “I’m not. Not anymore.”
Dean hugged him tight again.
“Call that number he gave you. I’m gonna unpack.”
Dean gave him another quick squeeze and pounded his back before letting go. Okay. Love you, Sammy.
Sammy shot him the one-handed ‘I love you’ sign before he jogged up the stairs with their duffels.
Dean blew the air out of his cheeks and picked up the phone to call Bobby.
Unseen by either brother, their angelic guardian stood just inside the front door but was startled when a hand gave the back of his neck a friendly squeeze. “Well done, little brother.”
“Well done?” he hissed softly. “The boy is possessed.”
“And Bobby and Rufus will be here in a matter of hours, and then he won’t be possessed. But you heard Sammy. They’re happy. That’s the way Dad wants them to be.”
The young angel sighed. “Such the simplest of things, to be happy. Such the hardest of things for humans. I did not realize that removing John Winchester from the picture would make this much of a difference.”
“It might not have if Dean weren’t so committed to making things better. Sammy’s a good kid, demon blood or not. He needs a guardian who’ll see that and help him flourish.” The archangel paused. “I think they were already headed that way in April, but this trip just sealed the deal. And it had the added advantage of keeping them out of town long enough for other people to notice a change in Josh that Sammy might not have spotted right away.”
“I know... I know we aren’t supposed to want....” He fell silent, and his brother could see in his eyes he was terrified that his desiring something meant he had fallen.
The archangel smiled kindly. “Say it, bro. You’re fine.”
“I wish... I want there... I want there to be some way that demon blood would not taint the child. He is so young, brother.”
“I know. I’m workin’ on it. And I don’t know yet if there’s a way to get rid of the demon blood-but I’ve got a feeling that if anyone can raise that boy right, to the point that he’s not going to fall prey to Azazel’s temptations, it’ll be Dean. And he’ll do it here.” The archangel smirked. “And we’re gonna help him.”
His younger brother beamed at him. “Thank you for allowing me to assist.”
“Assist, nothing. We’re a team, Castiel. That’s how Dad wants it... and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“We are a team-” Castiel turned to face the seventeen-year-old on the phone. “And they are a team. Symmetry.”
Gabriel chuckled. “You’re small, but all brain.”
“Then we have work to do.”
“That we do, little brother. And so do they.”
Into Dean’s ear, Bobby was saying, “Stay inside the house. We’re only two hours out. Soon as Rufus gets his ass back here, we’ll be heading your way.”
“Anything we need to do in the meantime?” Dean asked.
“If he shows up, don’t engage him.”
“Lay low, pretend we’re not home?”
“Yeah. Where the hell have you been?” Rufus’s voice was a murmur in the background. “Never mind! The boys need us yesterday.”
Dean chuckled in spite of himself.
Two hours later, as promised, Bobby and Rufus pulled up outside the Winchester house. All was quiet... perhaps too quiet.
And Dean decided he needed to stop listening to Riders Radio Theater if his internal narration was going to get that cheesy.
The older hunters walked onto the porch and Bobby knocked twice. Then knocked twice again. Dean let them in, and Sammy greeted them each with a cup of holy water.
They knocked it back and Rufus grinned at him, putting a hand on top of his head. “Damn, boy, you’re sproutin’!”
Sammy wrinkled his nose, and Dean laughed. “I swear he grew two inches while we were gone!”
“Only one,” Sammy replied. Then he all but ran over and threw his arms around the other man. “Uncle Bobby... it’s Josh.”
Bobby hugged him back. “I know, son. Dean told me, and we’ve talked to that girl Daphne. Sounds like there’s more to the story than she told y’all, too-boy’s been caught torturing cats and generally actin’ out in ways that have a lot of people worried about him. Most folks seem to be writin’ it off as him just bein’ 13, but Daphne saw his eyes turn.”
“Why do they turn black, Uncle Bobby?”
“In general? Nobody really knows. In particular? Daphne said Tricia’d taken the Lord’s name in vain. Demon hears the name of Christ in any language, it flinches and reveals its true nature in the host’s eyes.”
Pensive, Sammy looked at Dean, and amazingly they signed in perfect unison that they wondered if ASL would do it as well.
“Okay,” Rufus said, pointing. “That? That’s just damned eerie.”
The others laughed.
“To answer your question,” Bobby said, “I wouldn’t know. Most hunters just say ‘Christo,’ but there aren’t many deaf or mute hunters out there. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work, though.”
“Secret weapon!” Sammy laughed.
“Knew it would come in handy,” Dean replied, fully intending the pun.
Bobby gently cuffed him on the back of the head for the pun. Dean staggered exaggeratedly. As he intended, Sammy laughed.
“Seriously, though, Bobby,” Dean continued, “what do we need to do?”
“We need to get him here, get him in a devil’s trap and exorcise the hell outta him.”
Rufus snorted. “NOW who’s makin’ with the pungent puns, Singer?”
“Oh, bite me.”
The boys snickered.
Rufus clapped his hands together. “In the meanwhile, got any food hereabouts? I’m starvin’!”
“You just ate an hour ago!” Bobby pointed out.
“Yeah! I’m starvin’!”
Sammy rolled his eyes and headed into the kitchen. “This way, Mr. Turner.”
“Rufus, please. Or Uncle Rufus’ll do fine.”
“Yes, sir. What would you like, Rufus? I think Daphne said she left us some lasagna....”
“Ooohhh, that sounds great.”
As Rufus followed Sammy into the kitchen, Dean turned back to Bobby. “There’s one thing I don’t get. Why Josh? Does this demon have some special interest in Sammy?”
Bobby was at a sudden loss. How much should he tell him?
Finally, he sighed. “Listen, Dean, there’s a lot I don’t know for sure. But your daddy... he’s got some theories. About your mom. About Sammy. And if I had to make a guess, I’d say it does want something with Sammy. What, exactly, I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t, or won’t?”
“Couldn’t,” Bobby said honestly.
“Bobby....”
“Son, I swear, I don’t know for sure. Demons lie. Sometimes they get mouthy. Sometimes hunters put more stock in their answers than they should. And I don’t just mean your daddy.”
Suddenly Dean realized why their father had always been harder on Sammy than on him. “You don’t... you don’t think this demon’s the only one that’s got it in for Sammy, do you?”
“What do you mean?” Bobby asked, frowning.
Dean sighed; he wasn’t always good at explaining himself out loud, but Bobby didn’t know enough ASL for him not to try. “We’ll get rid of this one, right? But if it found us, so could others, if it’s not working alone.” He paused. “I guess what I’m asking is, how do we keep Sammy safe? We’re not moving again, not until we both finish school.”
“Lemme think on that one, okay, son?”
Dean nodded. “One thing at a time. Okay.” He thought for a moment. “Josh wouldn’t come up on the porch, which means he knows there’s a devil’s trap there. Do we force him into it anyway, or should we set up some others in places he won’t expect?”
“We set it up in places he wouldn’t expect.”
“And then...” Dean hated to ask, but he had to. “Do we get Sammy to play bait?”
“Yeah,” Sammy said from the doorway. “I’ll do it if I have to.”
Dean turned to him. “You sure? I mean, I don’t want to put you in danger....”
“Dean, how else are we gonna know if he’s caught?”
Dean sighed. You right. I not like.
“Keep an eye on me, then. What if we set it up at the soccer field or someplace like that, where nobody’ll think it’s weird that you’re there? Or the garage, maybe?”
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Bobby interrupted. “Mercer owes me a favor or five.”
Dean nodded slowly, pondering the layout of the garage. “Then you and Rufus can be in the office, and I can be showing Sammy something on one of the cars while we wait.”
That wouldn’t seem suspicious. Sammy had really gotten interested in the mechanics of engines since he had watched a shuttle land on TV over the summer before. He was still better at theory than practice, but hey, baby steps. Besides, it was giving him a good start on applied physics, so he’d be in good shape when he got to the physics class in high school, assuming that they had a competent AP science teacher by then. ’Cause, really, honestly-Mrs. Phillips sucked.
Bobby nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Mind if I use your phone, boys?”
Dean nodded and gestured toward it.
When 2:00 rolled around the next day, Dean was surprised at how busy the garage was. Unfortunately, that meant there’d be witnesses; fortunately, it also meant that there was a good car he could park under the devil’s trap Bobby and Rufus had painted over the maintenance bay. Sammy had called Josh the night before and arranged to meet him there before going off to play video games, so the stage was set.
When Josh rode his bike up, Leo started bringing the bystanders into the back of the garage, one at a time, on the pretext of a contract dispute. Really, under Mercer’s direction, he was getting them out of the way.
Sammy, meanwhile, was genuinely engrossed in the discussion he was having with Dean about the car, so he didn’t realize Josh had arrived until he heard someone shout his name over the noise of the shop fans.
Dean squeezed his arm, his eyes communicating it all. ASL wasn’t all hand gestures-eyes and expressions said a lot as well.
Sammy blinked his understanding and straightened. “Hey, Josh! Come check this out-Dean’s just been explaining this... what’d you call it?”
“Manifold,” Dean answered with a smile.
Josh rolled his eyes. “Man, what are you doin’ starin’ at cars? I thought you wanted to check out Super Mario 64.”
“I do, but this is cool. Come look.” Sammy grinned. “Dean can make a car sing,” he finished.
Dean grinned back at him. “Yeah, Josh, come check this out. It’s the kind of thing every red-blooded American male needs to know.”
Josh huffed, but since no genuine 13-year-old boy who thought of himself as a red-blooded American male would tolerate an implied challenge to his masculinity and the demon needed to maintain his cover, he walked over to the maintenance bay.
Sammy pointed out things to him for a moment; then Dean straightened and took a step back. He moved his hands like he was going to wipe them, but then the right one curved into a C and touched his left shoulder, then his right hip, tracing the form of a sash. Christ.
He was only in Josh’s peripheral vision, but the demon still flinched.
Catching Sammy’s eye, he signed quickly, ASL works. Then he tossed his rag over the boys’ heads to hit the office window, the signal for Bobby and Rufus to come out. They came out at a walk, not a run.
Sammy saw them and backed away from the car casually. “Oh, hey, Uncle Bobby, Uncle Rufus.”
“Uncle Bobby! Uncle Rufus!” Dean grinned, walking over. “Thought you were here today!”
“Boys,” Bobby nodded. “Who’s your friend, Sammy?”
“This is Josh!” Sammy grinned. “Josh, c’mere and say hi to my uncles!”
Josh huffed again. “Hi, Sammy’s uncles. Dude, can we just go? It’s hot.” He turned and tried to walk away from the car... and ran into an unseen wall.
“Got a problem there, Josh?” Rufus asked calmly.
And four sets of eyes were suddenly on Josh.
Josh tried again to walk away and again stopped short. Then he rounded on Sammy, his eyes a furious black from corner to corner. “How dare you!”
“How dare I?” Sammy erupted. “How dare you!”
“You betrayed me!”
“You are hurting my friend! Did you seriously think I wouldn’t know?”
“You’re thirteen! Your fool of a brother keeps you in the dark!”
Dean had to stop Sammy from lunging at Josh. “Demons lie,” he hissed in Sammy’s ear.
And suddenly, Josh couldn’t speak. He clawed at his throat, but it did no good.
Sammy turned to look at Dean. “You don’t-do you?” he whispered.
Never, Dean signed. We brothers. We partners. No secrets.
It wants you angry, came a quiet thought from somewhere else.
Josh frowned deeply at the strange hand movements.
You calm, Dean signed. It wants you angry, it shows you that.
Don’t give in, continued the quiet voice in the back of Sammy’s mind. You’d only hurt your friend if you fought. Listen to Dean.
Sam listened-to both the voice and to his brother. His shoulders relaxed and he nodded.
“What is this?” Josh snarled. “What’s going on here? Why-”
“Exorcisamus te,” Rufus interrupted.
Josh gasped.
“Tell us!” Dean yelled. “Tell us why you’re here!”
“Why is there-” Josh’s question was choked off by Rufus’ reciting the next clause of the exorcism.
“Why are you here?” Dean demanded again.
“No!”
Rufus recited the next clause.
“Better talk, idjit,” said Bobby, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
Rufus got about halfway through the exorcism before Josh finally gasped out, “Boy King. I was sent to watch the Boy King!”
“Boy King?” Dean and Sammy chorused. “What do you mean?”
“Sammy-he’s-NO, I can’t tell you!”
Rufus continued.
“TALK, dammit!” Dean cried.
“He’ll kill me!”
“Who sent you?” Bobby thundered.
Josh choked and wheezed and finally gasped out, “Azazel! His name is Azazel!”
“What does he want with me?” Sammy bellowed.
“WHY IS THERE AN A-” Josh choked again.
Answer him, a voice small as the breeze but powerful as thunder shook inside Josh’s skull. And say nothing of me.
“Chosen,” Josh squeaked. “You’re his favorite. You’re our leader. Please, he’ll kill me-or worse-I don’t know any more!”
Stunned, Sammy and Dean both staggered back until they ran smack into Bobby’s chest.
Bobby and Rufus exchanged a look. Bobby nodded, putting his arms around the Winchesters, and Rufus finished the exorcism. The demon came out with a shriek in a cloud of black smoke and disappeared through the floor of the garage; Josh toppled forward, and Rufus hurried to catch him.
“... the hell was that?” asked a strange voice from behind the hunters. They turned to see Daphne’s dad standing there.
Dean blinked. “Mr. Vaughn? What brings you here?”
“Heard the Robichaux boy’d been seen up here and wanted to catch him, tell him to stay away from Daphne.” Mr. Vaughn looked at Bobby. “Are you the man who called yesterday?”
“Yes, sir. Bobby Singer. My partner, Rufus Turner.”
Rufus spared him a nod and went back to checking Josh’s vital signs. “He’ll be okay,” he announced after a moment. “Probably on the traumatized side, but he’ll recover just fine. We’re lucky Daphne and Tricia caught him so early.”
“How much did you hear?” Bobby asked warily.
Mr. Vaughn shook his head. “Just screams, and then I saw that... whatever it was come out of the boy.” He frowned. “He-he wasn’t possessed, was he?”
“You look like a smart man, Vaughn. What do you think?”
Mr. Vaughn looked at Josh’s unconscious form again and ran a hand over his mouth and chin. “Everyone said they didn’t think he was the type to go off the deep end like he did. Never in trouble, never known to play around with the occult or drugs or anything like that.” He met Bobby’s eyes once more. “That could have been my Daphne.”
Bobby didn’t reply.
“Mr. Singer... you must know what the rumor mill is like in a small town. Word’s going to get out. Parents will panic. We need to know: how do we keep this from happening again?”
“This ain’t the kind of thing you can unlearn,” said Rufus. “Once you know what’s out there, there’s no goin’ back to normal.”
“We need to know the truth, Mr. Turner,” Mr. Vaughn insisted. “It’s a quiet town, a safe town. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Please, just teach us what we need to know to defend ourselves, our kids.”
“No guarantee another demon’ll show up anytime soon,” Bobby noted. “And Dean and Sammy plan to be here for a few more years yet.”
Mr. Vaughn’s chin raised slightly in defiance. “This is Texas, Mr. Singer. We don’t wait around for the cavalry. Most of us know how to defend against human attackers; we just need to know how to defend against non-human ones.”
Bobby looked at Rufus, who smiled slightly. Then he released the boys and walked up to Mr. Vaughn.
“You can start,” he said, “by callin’ me Bobby.”
When Leo came back inside with the other customers, he took one look at Dean’s shell-shocked face and told him to take the rest of the day off. Bobby answered the others’ concern about Josh with a cover story about his having had a seizure, and Mr. Vaughn helped Rufus bundle Josh into the back seat of the Impala while Bobby steered Dean and Sammy outside. Sammy sat in the back with Josh, Dean in the front with Bobby, and Rufus took his truck back to the house while Bobby drove the Impala to get Josh home.
Josh’s eyes fluttered open just as Bobby deposited him on the couch in his own living room. Sammy was at his side immediately.
“Hey, Sammy,” Josh whispered.
“Hey, Josh,” Sammy said, carding his hand through Josh’s hair. “You okay?”
Josh nodded slightly. “Will be. That was freaky.” His eyes slid over to Bobby. “Thank you.”
Bobby nodded.
“How...” Sammy bit his lip. “How much do you remember?”
“All of it.” Josh shuddered.
“How’d it get you?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know, sir. Was just out ridin’ my bike the other night, and all of a sudden this patch of fog just... jumped me.”
Dean looked at Bobby. “How do we protect them if the demons are gonna just jump people?”
Bobby sighed. “There’s some protective amulets out there. I’ll have to do a little research to see if I can get enough for everybody.”
“My dad’s a jeweler,” said Josh. “Maybe he could make some.”
Bobby’s eyes went huge at that. “Maybe he could.”
Sammy chewed on his lip for a moment before asking, “Josh... there was something the demon was trying to ask. Do... do you know what it was?”
Josh closed his eyes wearily. “Said a lot of freaky s-stuff, man. I dunno what was true and what wasn’t.”
Sammy patted his shoulder. “Rest, man, okay?”
Josh nodded, and Sammy started to get up. Then Josh opened his eyes again and said, “There’s one thing I know isn’t true, though. You’re not that Boy King of Hell or whatever. You’re cool. And I’m glad you’re my friend.”
Sammy’s face broke into that huge, dimpled smile that he only got when he was genuinely happy. “Thanks, Josh.”
Josh returned the smile and fell asleep.
Once they were outside on the porch, Dean looked up at Bobby. “Uncle Bobby? The whole town?”
Bobby nodded. “Only way to be sure.”
Emotional, Dean slid to Sign. You teach Dad. You teach us. But a TOWN.
“Rufus’ll help. And I want you boys in on it, too.”
But where- Dean stopped signing as he and Sammy looked at each other with the same realization.
“The football stadium,” they chorused aloud.
Bobby nodded. The stadium it was.
It took the better part of a week to make all the arrangements and gather all the materials needed for the crash course Bobby and Rufus had planned, which meant that the town meeting would fall on Saturday, August 10. In that time, Josh recovered enough to tell a few concerned friends what had happened, being very careful to edit out the parts about the demon’s motive, its beliefs about Sammy, and the figure in the background that the demon had sworn was an angel. Naturally, the story did spread all over town and grew in the telling, but never in a way that made Sammy or Dean look bad; that much was a relief.
The fact that Mr. Robichaux delivered a carload of boxes of something to the Winchesters and their ‘uncles’ did raise some eyebrows, though.
The sheer size of the crowd shocked the hunters when they arrived at the stadium. Daphne and Tricia, who had drafted Daphne’s family to help with the setup, met the hunters at the concession stand and reported that from what they could tell, apart from a few of the most vocal of the local skeptics, practically the entire town had turned out. The home stands were packed, and quite a few people were sitting in the visitors’ stands as well.
The principal introduced Bobby and Rufus. Bobby took the microphone and nodded to Daphne, Tricia, and the boys to start distributing the necklaces Mr. Robichaux had made: an iron pentangle surrounded by a silver sunburst, hung on a chain made of iron and silver wires twisted together. Each jewelry box also had a small card inside the lid with the exorcism from the Rituale Romanum printed on it in both Latin and English.
One woman took one look at the pendant and cried “WITCHCRAFT!”
That elicited a murmur of concern from the United Pentecostals and snickers from the goths in another part of the stands.
“No, ma’am,” Bobby replied calmly. “King Solomon found that the pentangle knot was a token of truth and one of the best signs to protect against demons-as long as the star stands on its own two feet, like the Lone Star of Texas.”
Mollified, the woman slid it on.
“Now, some of you kids might think it’s edgy to wear this thing upside down,” Bobby continued, addressing the goths. “But if you do that, it won’t just not work; it’ll invite a demon to possess you. And believe me when I say that you do not want to go playin’ around with the forces of Hell. I’ve been fightin’ ’em for over twenty years, Rufus for longer’n that. Demons are not your friends, and the Devil is not the lord you want to serve. He genuinely does want only to steal, to kill, and to destroy.”
A few of the goths still snickered, but several of them sobered as they put on their pendants. And Bobby could see Dean, as well as several of the uniformed deputies, making a mental note of which kids to watch for potential trouble should they get hold of the wrong grimoire.
“Why not a cross or a crucifix?” someone else called.
Rufus took the microphone to answer. “Sometimes that does work, but this case is one where it wouldn’t have. If the demons are trying to start the Apocalypse, there are some rules they’ll start to ignore, especially the stronger ones. Now, most of what we’re gonna teach you tonight will protect you against your garden-variety demon, but they might not hold up if one of the big dogs gets loose. But there are some defenses even Lilith can’t break, and that anti-possession charm is one of ’em.”
There was some general murmuring at that.
“Look, folks, this ain’t rocket surgery. It’s not like you’ve gotta run around scared all the time or do some elaborate rituals to stay safe. And it’s not ‘occult’ except in the sense that it’s not common knowledge. We’re just here to show you some basic steps to protect your home and family, just like you would set up a security system to keep out burglars. A lot of this stuff also works on ghosts and other things that go bump in the night.”
“You could think of it as bein’ like a firewall on your computer, if you’ve got AOL,” Bobby added. “You don’t even have to think about it most of the time, just set it up and let it keep the bad stuff from getting inside.”
Once the kids had finished handing out the anti-possession charms, they went around again (take-one-pass-’em-down style) with a packet of notes and illustrations while Bobby and Rufus explained the basics. While Bobby ran through the introduction he’d prepared, Rufus suddenly caught sight of an older man who was arriving late. He couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but something about the guy was suspicious. So he kept an eye on him while Bobby explained the effect of the name of Christ on demons.
Even from fifty yards away, Rufus could see the guy flinch.
Rufus signaled to Dean, who noted the man’s location and nodded, then signed something to Sammy and Daphne. They were planning to have volunteers come out of the crowd at various points anyway; now it looked like they’d have a live demonstration.
The man was volunteered forward a few moments later.
Once he got up onto the stage, Bobby stated, “Now, to give y’all an idea of how this works, let’s say this gentleman-what’s your name, sir?”
“Harold.”
“Let’s say Harold here starts acting suspicious, and I want to make sure he isn’t possessed. But there might not be a good way for me to work ‘Christo’ into the conversation.”
Bobby was deliberately looking away from Harold, but he could hear a few murmurs from the crowd.
“Any name of God would work. I could act excited and be all, ‘Oh, dear God!’” Which was what Tricia had done.
The murmurs grew.
“But say I want to be a little more subtle.” He picked up the glass of water from the podium, took a drink, and turned to Harold. “Here, Harold, care for a drink of water?”
“Uh... no... not really thirsty.”
“Aw, c’mon, it’s still 95 out here! You’ve got to be at least a little thirsty.”
“I... I’m really not, I swear.”
To the side, just in his peripheral vision, Sam signed ‘Jesus’.
There were some audible gasps when Harold’s eyes flashed black this time.
“Going once... going twice...” And Bobby threw the holy water squarely in Harold’s face.
Harold screamed. His flesh steamed and his hands covered his face. Everyone gasped, and not a few people leapt to their feet.
“Holy water, ladies and gentlemen,” Bobby explained, strolling away from Harold.
Harold was breathing hard, and he gasped out, “You think you’re so smart!”
Bobby smirked. “I know I am.”
Harold lunged-and slammed into an invisible barrier.
“You see, Harold, Rufus and I, we weren’t convinced Josh was the only person in this town who was possessed. We work in pairs; figures you might work in pairs. So we took a little extra precaution tonight.
“Folks, if you’ll turn to page 3 of your handout, you’ll see a drawing labeled ‘Devil’s Trap.’ Now, Rufus drew one of those under the stage this morning, and Harold is standing in it right now. You can see for yourselves how effective it is.”
Harold roared and slammed against the edge of the trap over and over.
Josh winced, remembering.
“And this,” continued Rufus, “is as good a time as any to introduce you folks to the text that’s on page 4. It goes like this:”
Rufus read the exorcism, and Harold began to scream again. When it was over, black smoke poured out of his mouth and went down into the earth. Harold collapsed.
Immediately, two of the EMTs in the audience rushed toward the stage while Bobby checked Harold’s vital signs. There was a rumble of hushed conversation among the other people in the stands, and Bobby turned off his mike long enough to speak to the EMTs before they hurried him off to the ER.
“I don’t understand,” someone called down from the stands before Bobby could resume the lecture. “Harold’s a nice guy-heck, I just saw him in church last Sunday!”
“Like I said,” Rufus shrugged, “they don’t always play by the rules.”
“You protect your kids against every other kind of predator,” Bobby added, “and even though this is a pretty safe town, you know that evil people don’t always look evil. Same goes for demons. That’s why we’re here, to show you what to do.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable, reflective silence. But when Bobby picked up his spiel where he’d left off, every eye was on him.
Rufus then took over again. “Now, again, we’re not trying to make you all paranoid. There is nothing in this but the same kind of protection you would take against any other predator.”
It wasn’t long before Dean noticed more and more people jotting notes in the margins of their handouts. Apparently the practical demonstration, while (mostly) unexpected, had proven Bobby and Rufus’ point. And it was at about the same time that Bobby and Rufus both hit their lecturing stride.
Once they’d gone over the theory behind the first few pages of the handout, they had the crowd read through the exorcism several times until most people’s East Texas twang wouldn’t corrupt their pronunciation of the Latin. Rufus made sure to stress the importance of drawing the devil’s traps and protective sigils exactly the way they were shown in the handout. They spoke of salt as wards, and Dean noted the owner of the feed store suddenly writing down something in the palm of his hand.
And, just to make sure they weren’t going too fast, Bobby stopped every half hour to review and take questions, a strategy Dean had suggested based on his own teaching experience. The questions were intelligent. People grasped quickly that this really was to protect the town and its children from what happened to Josh. And even the most smart-alecky goths took the instruction seriously, although Dean couldn’t tell what they planned to do with the information.
At last, the crowd broke up and one or two people came down onto the field to ask more in-depth questions.
Watching the cars drive away into the night, Dean signed to Sammy, What have we done?
Good, I hope, Sammy signed back.
Yes good, Daphne chimed in. We safer now. We know.
No, Dean signed. Bad. Destroyed innocence.
Sammy sighed. “Dean... it’s not gonna stop. You know that.”
Dean’s eyes closed and he nodded.
“I mean, even the Shire had to fight evil on its own doorstep,” Sammy continued, trying for an analogy he thought Dean might understand. “Maybe it won’t be any worse here than the Battle of Bywater, but... the battle’s still likely to come, sooner or later.”
Best to go in with our eyes open and our swords sharp, Dean replied.
“All David had was a sling and five stones,” Daphne added, “but that was enough to take down the giant. And when you’ve got two thousand people with slingshots and stones....”
“It’s a whole damn town of Davids,” Dean breathed aloud.
Sammy and Daphne grinned at each other. It was a pretty damned good start.
Later that night, Josh knelt beside his bed and prayed quietly, “Hey, if the angel I saw is listening... look, um... I know we’re not really supposed to pray to angels, but-I thought I should say-I’m not gonna tell.”
Thank you, breathed the barest whisper in the back of his mind.
He thought he felt a hand ruffle his hair... but when he turned to look, no one was there.