The Missing Ingredient
<Katia's POV>
The beaming smile on Crowley's face was an image that would be permanently engraved into my mind; that smile was a sign that Crowley had won, that meant us Winchester were out of the game. Dean, Sam and I had been in some sort of race against Crowley; unfortunately he had been us to the finish line.
'My time's up,' I repeated the words that Crowley had spoken just seconds ago. Although I was staring directly at a demon, I couldn't focus properly on any of his features.
Crowley rubbed his hands together as he slowly drifted closer to me. 'Maybe we should wait until you brothers' return; watch the looks of horror fill their eyes as my hounds tear you to shreds,' the demon continued. He tried to put me into a state of terror, yet he was failing miserably.
'Maybe we should,' I agreed. My face, and voice, was dry of all emotion; I had prepared myself for what was coming over the last few months.
'But then again, maybe it'll just be better to let them return and see that you are already gone,' he continued to speak; the cunning smile remained on his face. 'They'll never forgive themselves if they know that they were a couple of hours too late.'
I nodded calmly. 'Whichever one suits you,' I muttered.
As I spoke, I was slowly inching myself towards a duffel bag that Dean had left behind; it contained all of our current ingredients for this deal breaker along with a couple of weapons that would protect me from Crowley's hellhounds for maybe a couple of hours.
'You're no fun,' Crowley huffed as he crossed his arms before turning back around and walking back towards the window. The second his back was turned I made a quick, silent dash to the duffel before snatching it into my possession.
As his back was still turned, I grabbed the tub of salt before sprinkling it into a large circle around my feet; luckily, the motel room had a carpet floor so there was no sound from the crystals hitting the ground. The demon was completely oblivious to the actions taking place whilst his back was turned.
'Maybe you could set your hounds on me when Dean and Sam arrive; that way they'll hear my screams yet they will be completely useless,' I announced once I had protected myself in the circle of salt; in my hand I held a bag of Goofer dust which Sam claimed would make the barrier harder to break through. .
'Good idea; you know what Katia, maybe you're actually going to make a good demon,' Crowley spoke. A smile was on his face when he turned to face me, that smile instantly dropped when saw me stood in a circle of salt. 'That's not going to protect you forever,' he muttered.
I watched Crowley's feet as he began to walk over to me; he was going to attempt to blow the salt away however I knew more than he did. The demon continued to get closer until he was abruptly stopped in his tracks.
'Do you really think I'd be stupid enough not to prepare a devils trap; you literally told me you were coming, I'm not dumb you know,' I muttered as I watched Crowley stare at the ground, and then the ceiling in surprise. Once I had told Dean and Sam about my run-in with Crowley, they had insisted that we pulled up the carpet and drew a devils trap beneath it.
'This isn't going to stop the hounds you know, they just need time,' Crowley responded calmly as he stepped back. 'They're always going to find a way in...'
If it wasn't for the fact that this situation was probably going to end in my death it would be quite funny. Both Crowley- a King of Hell- and I were trapped in a painted devils trap and a circle of salt; if house-keeping were going to make an appearance they would probably think the pair of us had gone crazy.
-
<Sam's POV>
Finding the address that Mr Robertson had sent us seemed to be a harder task than Dean and I had first anticipated. The pair of us was sat in the Impala as Dean slowly drove through a rundown part of town; there weren't that many people around so we couldn't even ask directions.
Like I had already done plenty of times previously, I checked the text message that Mr Robertson had sent me just to check that we were heading to the correct place; so far we had driven in a complete circle about three times and we didn't seem to be any closer to our target area.
I could see the anger, and annoyance increasing in Dean's behaviour as he turned down another street. In the time that we'd been in this neighbourhood I had checked for directions on my phone, and also tried to find the correct place on an actual map- which Dean kept in his glove compartment in case of emergencies.
Dean was about to ask me another question however as he opened his mouth my phone began to ring in my pocket. I was quick to free it from my where it was stored, and the second I saw Katia's caller ID I had the phone pressed to my ear. 'Hello?'
'Hey,' Katia spoke softly; she sounded completely calm...a little too calm for my liking. 'How is the witch hunt going?' she questioned, this time the question seemed a little more urgent as if she was begging for an answer; too bad the answer I wasn't going to give her wasn't a good one.
'Not too well, we can't even find the address that Mr Robertson gave us,' I answered back. 'How are you feeling, is everything okay?' I questioned quickly.
I heard my younger sister sigh softly on the other side of the line. 'I'm feeling better, am I on loud speaker?' she asked, desperation clearly in her voice.
'Yeah,' I responded as I clicked the button which meant that both Dean and I could hear the conversation she was currently wanting to have it us.
'He's here,' she continued softly. 'Crowley showed up not too long ago, he's in the devils trap but he says that his hounds are still on their way,' Katia continued to explain.
Dean and I shared a quick look of panic before Dean snatched the mobile from my hands. 'Did you do what we told you to do, have you got salt around you?' Dean immediately questioned; Katia was quiet but I heard her answer with a "yes". 'Prepare the rest of the ingredients', Katia; we're going to find this witch and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. The salt and Goofer dust should hold the hounds off until then, understand?'
'Yes Dean, I understand,' Katia simply replied. 'But just in case this doesn't work-,' she started, but Dean cut her off.
'It's going to work, just hold the hellhounds off for a couple of hours,' Dean replied quickly; he then passed the phone back to me before proceeding to speed around the neighbourhood in search of this one house which seemed to be non-existent.
-
Following Katia's phone call, Dean had gone into full "detective" mode. Somehow, he had managed to track the hidden house with the address that Mr Robertson had given us within a couple of minutes following Katia's revelation.
No wonder we hadn't managed to track it earlier; the place was practically hidden. If it wasn't for the fact that we had spent a good while searching for it we never would have spotted the slight opening in the forest of trees- most of which looked kind of dead and withered.
The second Dean has spotted the dirt pathway, he turned directly down the road; the further into the trees we got, the more the place looked like a witch's hideaway.
After driving down the dirt driveway for over two minutes, we finally arrived at the house which matched the address.
The building at the end of the drive did not match the rest of the neighbourhood; it wasn't anything grand however it looked like some sort of cottage that you'd see in a fairytale. Now that we were actually here it stood out a lot compared to the rest of Fargo; it was a rather nice looking place nevertheless.
'Sammy, there isn't time to admire the house; get your stuff and move,' Dean hissed as he shoved his door open before climbing out of the car. He quickly stuffed his pistol into the belt of his jeans before heading around to the trunk of the car, I knew better than to protest so I quickly followed in his lead.
Not even minutes later the pair of us stood at the door of the cottage. Dean had already pounded his fist against the painted green door repeatedly before crossing his arms and waiting with a stern glare on his face for someone to answer. When almost five seconds past with no response, the fist pounding began once more as Dean waited for a reply.
The sound of someone ruffling something on the other side of the door seemed to be heard first before the actual door was opened. A woman with blonde- almost white- hair stood in the doorway; she wore a long, light blue dress and high heeled shoes yet she didn't seem to be heading out anywhere.
'Hello,' she spoke, her voice was soft and calm; I'd be lying if I said it didn't give me chills.
'We need a hex-bag,' Dean almost instantly spoke, he cut off whatever it was that the woman was going to say. 'Pronto,' he added when the woman didn't do anything in response.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' she stated; even a blind man would be able to see that she was lying. 'Now, if there's nothing more that I can help you with I've got a cake to finished baking,' she proceeded to speak before attempting to close the door; both Dean and I shot our feet out before us to stop the door from closing fully.
'Ma'am, you're our last chance,' I spoke calmly whilst staring directly into the crystal blue eyes of this nuisance of a witch. 'Our sister's life is at risk, and you're our last chance to save her,' I continued.
It was as I spoke that Dean pulled a sharpened dagger from the inside of his jacket. 'Quit with the crap; it's either you help us, or we help ourselves,' he spoke harshly; his voice was spookily low and made even my skin crawl. 'Now you've got one of two choices; you give us the hex-bag, or you don't live long enough to see us take it for ourselves,' he added as he ran a finger down the blade in a threatening manner.
'Is that a threat,' the woman questioned; her sweet, soft voice had now turned into something that sounded like a hiss. 'I don't have what you're looking for,' she answered once more.
Dean had had enough; he braced his shoulders before storming straight past the woman and into her house. Even as she called to him, he proceeded to check each room in the small hallway until he found something that attracted his interest. I already knew that he wouldn't be leaving this house until he had a hex-bag in his hand.
-
<Katia's POV>
My legs were crossed as I sat in the centre of the salt and Goofer dust. Crowley was watching me with a suspicious smirk on his face; I continued to ignore him whilst dropping the piece of blood-bathed iron into the mixing bowl before moving onto the next ingredient.
My fate didn't seem to be heading in a good direction. Dean and Sam hadn't even found the address of this witch's house when I last contacted them.
'Is there really any point in you doing that?' Crowley questioned as he watched me make this little creation. To be honest, there probably wasn't any reason for me to be doing this...after all, I was probably going to just get whizzed away to Hell anyway.
I shrugged as I looked up to the demon; with my hand I sprinkled a variety of herbs into the pot. 'I might as well waste my time doing this; I can't exactly do anything else can I?' I muttered as I stared at the demon before smirking grimly.
'Well, you could do whatever you like...as long as you don't mind being mauled to death mid-action,' Crowley pointed out as if I had forgotten about our current situation; it's kind of hard to forget about a thing like that, especially when you're sat in a salt circle to protect yourself from the thing trying to kill you.
Turning back to my mixing bowl I let out an unimpressed laugh. 'I think I'll pass, thanks for the suggestion,' I muttered as I continued to add more ingredients to the pile that I had already created.
Our conversation had fallen into a comfortable silence. I had expanded my circle a slight bit so I could rest my back against the bed for a little more comfort. Even now, Crowley had decided to sit down in his own circle whilst waiting patiently for something entertaining to take place; whether that was Dean and Sam returning to save me, or the hounds coming to end me.
A loud bang had me instantly whipping my head to face the door. I had hoped for the bang to be followed by two men entering the room, a hex-bag in hand. Instead my luck had failed; the bang was followed by another, and then another, before a rapid sort of scratching sounded throughout the room.
Crowley's laugh echoed throughout the room as he stood back up again, clapping his hands in excitement.
'Here it comes!' he bellowed whilst continuing to applaud the awful scratching. 'I finally get to witness the day that Katia Winchester meets her end!'
The sound of wood splintering had me also scrambling to my feet. I stood to the further side of the salt circle- trying not to move the salt- whilst staring at the door. Time seemed to slow down with the sound of each Hellhound ramming its head into the opposite side of the wooden door.
'How do you feel, Katia?' Crowley asked, trying to document my current state.
As the door flung open, almost ripping straight from its hinges, I turned back to Crowley. 'Probably better than you're going to be feeling once Sam and Dean have gotten to you,' I responded viciously; the words rolled from my tongue in a frantic manner as I quickly whipped my head back around to face a group of three Hellhounds that were now flooding into the room.
'What do you really think that your brothers' will do to me?' Crowley questioned, his face was still beaming as he watched the Hellhounds move closer towards me. 'They have had years to get rid of me...and I'm still standing,' he continued to speak.
My interest towards Crowley had sort of faded, I was now staring at the growling dogs that prowled around the outside of the salt circle; every so often one of them would snap at me, but the salt barrier stopped them from actually reaching me.
-
<Sam's POV>
And I was so close to believing that this woman was human; I almost called Mr Robertson to tell him that he'd gotten it wrong...I almost felt guilty for raiding an innocent woman's home. Somehow she had managed to keep up her act, she followed Dean and I around the house nervously; every so often she'd even threaten to call the police if we didn't leave. She hadn't even attempted to use some sort of "witchy" spell on us.
But then Dean found a locked door hidden beneath the stairs.
That was then the witch sprung out. One minute she had been stood quietly behind us, but the second that Dean began to rattle the door handle she turned into some sort of wild beast. Her scared attitude seemed to change almost instantly into some sort of venomous string of threats.
'Stop,' she hissed as she moved closer towards me and Dean. For less than a second Dean stopped rattling the handle; he then realised that he was obviously getting closer to finding whatever this woman was hiding and continued to slam his entire body weight against the door in home of achieving something. 'Did you not hear me?' the woman questioned, she was growing impatient.
'Help me, Sam,' Dean instructed as he kicked the bottom of the wooden door with full-force.
The woman touched Dean's shoulder before I had chance to help him. 'I said stop,' she hissed, her voice sounded strangely haunting. As the words left her mouth Dean seemed to freeze by the door before slowly backing away, seconds later he was being launched into the opposing wall with an ungraceful thud.
As Dean began to stand back up, the woman seemed to realise what she had done because she stepped back humbly. And I had been so close to believing that she wasn't a witch and that Mr Robertson had made an unfortunate mistake.
'Get out of my house,' she demanded whilst continuing to back away from where Dean had stood up once again. 'Now!'
'Not until you give us what we came here for; all we need is a hex-bag, nothing more,' Dean replied whilst rubbing his head, the part that had hit the wall when he was launched in that direction. The witch now looked nervous as she flicked her gaze between my brother and I. 'Well it's either you give us what we asked for, or we end your life,' his voice got darker as he spoke that sentence.
Unwillingly, the woman pulled a necklace from around her neck before using it to open the locked door. 'If I give you this hex-bag, you must leave my house and not speak a word about where I am; do you understand?' she questioned.
I gave her a reassuring nod as she slipped down the stairs which probably led to a basement.
-
Not even five minutes had passed between the time that Dean had been thrown across the stairway, and the woman had given us the hex-bag. Now Dean was speeding down the road in the direction of the motel which Katia and Crowley were both waiting at.
As Dean drove, I struggled to untie the hex-bag so that I could remove the ingredients from the inside. We needed to work as quickly as possible so that when we arrived back at the motel we could finish everything as quickly as possible; after all, we weren't in the position to be wasting time.
My phone began to ring from my pocket once again; I quickly answered it without giving the caller ID a second glance. 'Hello?'
'Are you coming back yet?' Katia asked quickly; in the background I could hear the clear sound of hellhounds growling. The sound of the constant growly postponed me from answering Katia for a couple of seconds. 'Sam?' she questioned once again.
'Yeah, we're coming back now; we've got the hex-bag,' I stated simply; the hounds growls got louder and more vicious as I spoke.
'Good; I've got the rest of the ingredients prepared and everything seems to be going okay,' she answered. If you class being watched by hellhounds "okay" then Katia's life was currently going brilliants. 'How long do you think you're going to be?' she asked again.
'About ten minutes, just keep the hellhounds back for that long and you should be fine,' I reassured my younger sister.
'I will,' she replied quietly. 'Please, just hurry.'
-
<Katia's POV>
In my hand I gripped my phone tightly; although I had only spoken to Sam about fifteen minutes ago it seemed like it had been hours. The hellhounds were still surrounding me; with each second the stupid barrier of salt that was supposed to be protecting got a lot thinner.
Crowley proceeded to gleam at me in excitement from where he stood in his own devils trap. He also watched the line thin, with each breath one of his hounds would let out his excitement only seemed to increase.
When the door was finally forced open I could have cheered in relief- I decided against that as I didn't know if I was going to actually get out of this situation. Dean and Sam both stumbled into the motel room once the door had opened; none of the hellhounds even seemed to tear their eyes away from me for even a second, I don't think that they even noticed my brothers'- clumsy- entrance.
'Hello boys',' Crowley spoke from where he crossed his arms in his devils trap.
Dean and Sam both turned to glare at the demon. In Sam's hand I could clearly see the contents of a hex-bag as he made his way through the few hellhounds- I don't even think that he could see them, he didn't really have a reason too. Dean stood closer to Crowley; he held the Purgatory blade out threateningly.
'You okay?' Sam questioned, he crouched closer to me whilst checking my face for any visible wounds...too bad all of my wounds were only internal. Going against my honest thoughts, I just nodded with a forced smile as Sam poured the hex-bag ingredients' into the bowl that I had already filled with many other items.
Dean tossed Sam a lighter when he held his hands out. Effortlessly, Sam easily caught the lighter before bending back over the bowl.
When the contents went up in flames, I breathed out a breath which I didn't even realise I had been holding.
Two minutes later, after being stood over a rather foul smelling concoction, the Hellhounds hadn't moved the slightest. Their growls proceeded to rise in volume, the faces twisted into terrifying expressions.
The salt barrier continued to get thinner; my lifespan didn't seem to be getting longer.
Dean and Sam were both starting to get agitated by the lack of action taking place. Sam stood up from where he had been kneeling beside me. 'It's not working,' he announced urgently whilst grabbing the list of ingredients' from the dresser.
It was at that same point that Crowley began to cackle, his laughs were loud and gained everyone's attention- even the Hellhounds stopped growling for a second to look at their master.
'It looks like you're missing the final ingredient,' Crowley proceeded to chuckle as he tilted his head; his laugh echoed around the entire room in an intimidating manner. The three of us watched as he spoke; what was he trying to tell us?
'Call off your hounds, Crowley,' Sam exclaimed.
Crowley didn't answer him; instead his began to crouch back down towards the floor before moving himself right towards the edge of the devils trap. When he reached the limits of his barrier he lowered his head closer towards the floor, as he did so his eyes didn't lose contact from mine for even a second.
'And why would I tell you that?' he questioned. With those words he pursed his lips before letting out a long breathe.
I hadn't even noticed that he was blowing the salt of my protecting circle away until it was too late; the hounds were already attacking and the pain began instantly. As I felt something lock its jaws into the top of my arm, the scent of Dean and Sam's final attempt to save my life drifted up my nose.
As I stared away from my attackers, I saw Dean raise the Purgatory blade as he yelled a string of profanities. Claws tore down my thigh as Dean lowered the blade, swinging it straight towards Crowley. It only hit him slightly, but either way the demons blood sprayed across the room.
Finally, I let out a piercing scream.
---
Do you think Katia is going to make it? All we be answered in the next, and final chapter of "The 4th Winchester-Book 2".
I hope that the mix up of both Sam and Katia's POV's were okay to read and none of it was too confusing.
-T xox