"Good, so let's get going. We wouldn't want any more pregnant women to become un-pregnant, would we?"
Sam gave Dean a badly suppressed exasperated look, but that was just why Dean kept talking like a prick: Sam just looked too funny, when his self-righteousness got in the way of his common sense. He really should know that Dean cared a lot for these women. Who in their right mind wouldn't? Something – a deva apparently – came and stole their unborn babies right out of their wombs, leaving them broken and devastated. Because how do you explain to your family that all of a sudden you aren't pregnant anymore? How do you explain to them what happened with the baby? How do you explain the seemingly impossible?
So yeah, kill that Bitch-of-a-Whatever and save a few more kids to see the light of day. – Whatever good that might do, what with the apocalypse dangling over their heads and all. It almost seemed cruel to save them. And if not cruel then at least meaningless.
No. Dean ground his teeth together stubbornly. Doing good was not meaningless. Apocalypse be damned, doing good still meant something. It always would. "So, are we going or what?" he snapped, snatching the keys from the table.
"Not so fast."
"What, you said we could kill it. So let's go and kill it."
"Dean, this is not just another garden variety baddie."
"I know, it's taking unborn babies, so the sooner we kill it the better!" He tried to stare Sam down, but somehow that had worked better when they'd been younger and the age-gap had carried more weight. In other words: When bodily harm was not rendered a ridiculous threat by being shorter than his younger brother.
"There are precautions to take," Sam continued undeterred. "We want to make sure it's the deva who's dying, not us. So give me a little. Okay?"
"How long is a little?" Dean asked.
"A day, maybe two."
"Two days... very little," Dean mocked, and flopped down on his bed, turning on the TV.
-oOo-
The deva's lair wasn't hard to spot. After a lifetime of hunting – and not to forget another lifetime in hell – Dean had developed a very fine-tuned sense for the supernatural.
To the unsuspecting eye it was just another average house in an average town. A little run-down maybe, but nothing to raise suspicion. But to Dean it looked like the house had been dealt a paint job with that very special colour called evil.
He heard Sam next to him swallow. "I really rather not go in there," he said softly.
Dean was totally with him on that one. Sure, he wanted the deva dead, but he didn't want to see what it had done to all those babies. "Not much of a choice there. Or do you see the deva coming out to play with us? 'cause I don't." Wisecracking helped chipping the edge off and keeping things focused.
"Geronimo," Sam muttered, and Dean couldn't agree more.
They approached the house, Holy Water and an actual bucket full of smouldering frankincense at the ready. Why frankincense would harm this thing, Dean couldn't fathom, but Sam had assured him it would, and that was good enough for him.
The door opened easily enough, and Dean was instantly grateful beyond belief for the frankincense. The stench inside was nauseating to put it mildly. They both gagged, but managed not to throw up, concentrating instead on the heavy, penetrating smoke rising from the bucket.
From outside the house might look normal, but inside it was a completely different matter. There were blood stains on the floor and walls, and scattered across the hall were bits of flesh and small bones in various degrees of decay.
"Oh hello, darlings," a sweet female voice greeted them from the right. Sam's and Dean's heads spun from the hall at large over to her. She stood in the doorway to what was likely the living room, and she looked human enough in spite of the blood-smears on her face, chest and hands.
"Bitch," Dean hissed.
"How very nice of you," the deva acknowledged his insult with a smile and a nod. "But do you really think that 'bitch' is a worthy last word?"
"Worked for me the last time around."
That confused the deva for a moment, but she was soon back on track. "You know," she cooed, "I normally don't dine on males ... let alone born and grown ones." She laughed as if she'd made the ultimate joke, before she turned serious again. "But I could make an exception for you two. I hear you have very special meat on your bones. Wouldn't it be hilarious to have the apocalypse and nobody left to stop it? I sure would love a little chaos to spread."
At that Sam charged forward, splashing the creature with Holy Water. The deva screeched and backed up, protecting herself from the water. "How dare you!" she screamed. "I'll fry you for that!"
Now Dean charged forward, too, waving the bucket at her.
Again the deva backed up. "And get this stink out of my house!"
Yeah, likely. They had come to end this, after all.
Dean kept the deva in check with thick wafts of frankincense and well place squirts of Holy Water while Sam prepared a deva-trap of his own design: a circle of symbols and pots filled with frankincense. When they finally had her in the circle, Sam took over the show. He started the incantation he had found and memorized while Dean made sure the frankincense kept burning and refilled the pots where it seemed necessary.
The deva writhed and spat fire – literally, she did spit fire. The flames were not much worry about, though, because they didn't go far. But it was still unsettling to watch, especially when she started muttering incantations of her own, each word punctuated by a flock of sparks or bluish flames shooting from her mouth. Her eyes darted back and forth between Sam and Dean before she settled on Dean.
"Great, why always me?" Dean had time to mutter before everything became fuzzy. His vision blurred, the room around him grew, then shrank, grew again. His hearing tuned in and out. The temperature went from cooking to freezing, a gazillion immaterial ants crawled all over and under his skin. His brain spun. Really. Dean could feel it do somersaults inside his skull. He had the good sense to get away from the trap when he realised that he would loose consciousness, lest he disturbed it when he dropped.
-oOo-