While Sam stayed behind with Maddie and Zep, Dean and I went to see what Crowley needed. We waited in his motel room until he got back. When he did, he seemed surprised to find us already in the room.
"Hello, Dean. Eleanor."
"What do you call this?" Dean asked him, kicking the foot of a dead body on the floor.
"Refreshments?" he replied.
"What's in the bag, Crowley?" I glared at him.
"Nothing."
"Really? Maybe, I can, uh..."
Grabbing the bag from the demon, I tore it open to reveal a blood bag of AB Negative.
"What, are you knocking over blood banks?"
I grabbed his arm and swung him around as Dean swung a chair around to meet me halfway. Once Crowley was seated, we cuffed him to the arm.
"Come on, guys," he protested.
"Look at you. You're a mess. You know, we were counting on you. You let us down."
"Your slimy followers were counting on you to kill Abaddon, and you let them down."
"The man with the mojo- Captain Evil."
"Oh, it's pathetic," I scoffed.
"What is this? An intervention?" Crowley asked, looking between Dean and I.
"You need to focus, Crowley! Get a grip!" I snarled.
"What, you just gonna let Hell go to hell?" Dean added.
"You don't know what it's like to be human!"
We both just stared at the demon as he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them to continue.
"It's your DNA. It's my addiction, my cross, my burden!"
"Alright, take it easy," I told him.
"I see the darkness of it now, the Anthony Weiner of it," Crowley rambled. "It makes you needy. I needed her. Lola used me. She reported everything I did back to Abaddon."
"Crowley... did you tell her about the First Blade?" Dean demanded.
"I don't know. Things get a trifle blurry when I'm medicated."
"Great. If he told Lola, she definitely told Abaddon."
"Which means that Abaddon's in the hunt for this thing, too. Alright, you know what? This crap ends now. You're cut off. Okay? Kicking it. Cold turkey."
⁘
We got Crowley back to the Bunker and chained back up in the dungeon while he detoxed. He told Sam what happened when he went to sweep the Mariana Trench for the Blade, and after going to investigate the last known location, we learned that someone using the Men of Letters' alias 'Albert Magnus' had bought it. After quizzing Crowley about it, we found a file about one Cuthbert Sinclair who was kicked out of the Men of Letters because they thought his ideas were 'eccentric' and 'irresponsible'.
He was kicked out early enough that he missed the massacre. Crowley had heard someone was out, however his demons couldn't find him. We got him to take us to the place they tracked Sinclair to, which appeared to be an empty clearing in the woods.
"So, this is where your demons tracked him to?" Dean looked around the clearing.
"Exact spot," Crowley confirmed. "My boys never could find him. I'm sensing nothing, so if he's here, he's warded to the gills."
"Well, he was a genius at it, right? Sure as hell ain't gonna be found by a bunch of demons."
"Oh, like he's gonna open his heart to you lot, because you're such prizes?"
"Better- we're legacies," Dean smirked. "Alright, if he's so bent on hiding, maybe he's watching. Give it a shot."
"Cuthbert Sinclair- uh, Magnus- whatever," Sam began. "We're Sam and Dean Winchester, Henry Winchester's grandsons and Eleanor Dawson, Josie Dawson's granddaughter."
"And Men of Letters ourselves," Dean added.
"We know what happened back in the day," I picked up. "We don't necessarily agree with it. We figured... Maybe you want to tell your side of the story."
There was nothing, so we turned back to look at Crowley, but he pointed back behind us where a smoky doorway was rising from the ground. We exchanged a look and walked through it, leaving the demon behind. We immediately found ourselves in the hallway of a beautiful mansion.
"Which way?" Sam hissed.
Dean motioned to the right and we walked down the hall. As we rounded the corner, we were attacked by three vampires. Fighting them off, we beheaded all of them and then there was the sound of clapping and a voice over an intercom.
"Bravo! Well done."
A man with neatly styled hair and an old fashioned suit and bowtie appeared and led us into a living room where we took a seat on the couch while he poured himself a drink.
"Sorry about all the theatricality," he apologized. "I just wanted to see what you three were made of."
"So, what, are we underground?" Dean asked.
"No. No, my fortress is right where you were standing. But it's invisible."
"Then you must be Cuthbert Sinclair," Sam assumed.
"Ugh. I haven't gone by that moniker in, oh... 57 years?" Magnus smiled.
"Well, you're looking good for a guy pushing... 90?"
Magnus chuckled, smiling at me.
"Well, thanks, darling. There's a spell for damn near everything. I am impressed, though. You did exactly what you should have done. Though I'm gonna miss those three from my zoo."
"Your zoo?" Sam echoed.
"Oh, gentlemen, miss, you are in the midst of the greatest collection of supernatural rarities and antiquities on the planet," he bragged. "I'm sorry. Did you say you were Men of Letters? I thought that whole thing died out after '58."
"Well, we are- we are legacies," I explained. "But actually, uh... we're hunters."
"Hunters? Wow! Hunters. With the key to the kingdom!" Magnus laughed. "The boys must be spinning in their graves. Damn snobs. Bunch of librarians, if you ask me. Although I was always fond of Henry and Josie. I was their mentor, you know? Yeah, till the squares gave me the boot. Yeah. 'Course, Henry came here to visit me, in secret. Called out to me, same as you did. Oh, yes. Quite the wild hair, your grandfather was."
"Listen, Magnus, uh... We got ourselves a little situation," I said. "Abaddon, the last Knight of Hell, is looking to up her pay grade and take over the place."
"Things never change, do they? I kept telling the boys over and over again -- I would say, 'we could stop all this. We could rid the world of monsters once and for all if we just put our minds to it', but, 'oh, no,' they said. 'No, no, no. It's not our place. We're here to study. We're here to catalog.'"
"Yeah, yeah, no, we get it," Dean nodded. "They're, uh... geeks."
"Mm."
"But she can be stopped," I picked back up. "But we need something we hear you have- the First Blade."
"Hmm. I see. Interesting," Magnus nodded. "But if you'd really done your homework, you would know that it's absolutely useless, unless, of course, you're possessing the Mark-"
"-the Mark of Cain," I finished, rolling up my sleeve to show off the Mark.
"Oh my," Magnus's eyes lit up as he drank in the sight. "How did you come by that?"
"Listen, if Abaddon takes over, the one thing she wants more than anything is to make Hell on earth. Not even you can escape that."
"And they say all hunters are morons. It's right there behind you, sweetheart."
I turned with Sam and Dean to look behind us. There, on a stand on the mantel, was a jagged bone with leather wrapped around one end for a handle. All three of us stood up.
"Listen, if you're serious about taking action, this- this is taking action," I turned back to look at Magnus. "You loan us that Blade, and we will stop the bitch."
"Hm. Let me think about it."
He turned around and pinched some green powder from a tray on the end table.
"Okay. I've thought about it."
Turning back around, he blew the powder at Sam and Dean, reciting a spell.
"Abi, ab oculis meis!"
Both boys disappeared in a puff of smoke.