CHAPTER NINE: DEATH BY RAZOR BLADES

ABANDONED WAREHOUSE
GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Two Days Before Halloween

IT was October 29 and Henrietta wanted to punch something. They had been questioning the demon since morning but unfortunately, they had gotten no answers to any of their questions. Henrietta messaged her sore knuckles as she circled around the demon tied with iron chains to a chair in the middle of a Devil's Trap.

"Why did you come after me?" she asked but the demon only sneered. Henrietta shook her head and hopped on top of a table, legs swinging under. She clicked her fingers to catch the demon's attention. "Hey, you hard of hearing? Why did you come after me? Lilith ask you to?"

"You don't know anything," the demon scoffed in disdain.

"Well, duh," Henrietta shrugged matter-of-factly, "that's why I'm asking. See, the thing is, I have been wanting to punch something all day." She looked beside her on the table and smirked. She grabbed the brass knuckles and slid them on. They were made from gold that was blessed by a Bishop during the Crusades. She slid off the table and stalked closer to the demon who refused to look at her. Her hand raised, the gold glinting slightly when a rogue ray of sunlight struck it. And then her fist came barrelling down towards the demon's face.

SIOBHAN Locke felt nauseous. This was not surprising considering it was sometime around nine in the morning and she still hadn't eaten any breakfast. Instead, she had been here, in a rundown warehouse in Greenpoint since midnight while Henrietta questioned the demon.

She could hear the screams, though, and maybe that was the reasoning for nausea. Or maybe it was the news that Henrietta had brought with her. The news of the Apocalypse. Siobhan had almost laughed when Henrietta had told her. It couldn't have been real. But of course, it was. And naturally, the news had started spreading. Rumors of seals breaking and Lilith accumulating power had started being whispered between demons, psychics, and witches alike.

This was not the first time though, that she had been on the precipice of the end of the world. There had been that time, almost five years ago now, when the world had edged to its quiet climax and had been saved by a relatively clueless redhead. Of course, Henrietta had grown since then. But the scars remained. The edges of the world that were torn still hadn't healed.

Back then, Siobhan had been tied to a table ─ an ingredient to a world-shattering spell. But the spell hadn't been completed, and the world remained unshattered. With this new news though, she was left to wonder if the world wanted to end. She was a believer in destiny and in fate. Dominos aligned themselves perfectly and fell when they needed to ─ you can only hold up a falling domino for so long. Eventually, it was going to fall and hit the next one. Eventually, the house of cards collapsed.

SCREAMS reverberated off the warehouse walls. Henrietta dropped the brass knuckles on the table with a clang. The demon's face or rather the face he was wearing was bruised, bloody and broken. The corner of Henrietta's mouth fought off a smirk. 

She asked again, the same question. She had learned this at Ravenscar. Conditioning. Just comply and you can make the pain stop. It was all in your control. You are the one hurting yourself. Obey and save yourself. She had learned it but never complied. She had pretended to, of course, she had. The mental institution had made her a marvelous liar. 

"What's Lilith planning?" she asked again. The demon struggled to open his one eyes that weren't swollen. She raised her eyebrows as if asking Yes?, "What is she planning?"

"The seals," he mumbled. "The seals."

Henrietta crossed her arms. Neither Father Parish nor Siobhan had been able to find what all the seals were but they also didn't know that breaking 66 of them would set Lucifer free. "What about the seals?"

"It's all about the seals."

"Why did she send you after me?"

"Because she hates you wants you dead?" 

Henrietta screwed her face at the comment. The demon's vessel looked like it might pass out any moment. She pushed herself off the table and strode towards the door. "Look, spunky. The longer you don't give me the answers, the longer you're gonna have to stay here. I mean," she scoffed, "you're really doing this to yourself. And for what? It's not like you're gonna get an award if you ever make it back downstairs. Which you probably won't." She glanced at the salt and iron on the table and frowned sarcastically then pulled open the door of the warehouse.

Siobhan was waiting for her outside, sitting in the passenger seat of the Chevelle, phone to her ear. When she spotted Henrietta, she brought her phone down and stared up at her. "Tell you anything?"

Henry lit up a cigarette and a crease formed between her eyebrows. "Nothing new. This is about the seals, Shiv. Did you find anything on it? Any specifics?"

Siobhan frowned. "No." She kicked a rock, then looked up and Henrietta, squinting from the sun. "Hey, you want food?"

CENTRAL PERK
GROVE STREET, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

THE bustling coffee house was a popular spot. It was a niche little gallery filled with peculiar furniture that would look ridiculous on its own but only added to the charm of the store. It was also the place where Siobhan had first met her boyfriend Jay, and Henrietta thought that said a lot about them. Siobhan and Henrietta sat at a table in front of the large gallery window with a view of the street. She stared at the pancakes in front of her, stabbing them with her fork, and frowned at Siobhan who was eating as if it was her last day on earth.

"You're devouring," Henrietta remarked. "Slow down or it's gonna go down the wrong pipe." As if jinxed, Siobhan coughed. Henrietta shrugged knowingly. "Told you."

Siobhan rolled her eyes and reached for her water.

Henrietta looked around, eyebrows furrowed. A few tables over, teenagers were smushed together and one of them was strumming his guitar absentmindedly. On the ugly orange couch in the center, a group of twenty-something people sat laughing over coffee. On the table far back, a blonde girl was parked, chewing on the back of her pen. When she caught Henrietta looking at her, she smiled slyly and gave a flirty wave. Henrietta winked back at her. She turned to Siobhan. "Why're we here?"

"What do you mean, on Earth?" Siobhan asked. "I don't know. To eat, sleep, have a drink, and the night of our lives before we kiss goodbye."

"What the - what?" Henrietta made a face, creeped out. Shaking her head, she said, "No, I meant here. Central Perk." She caught the blonde girl's eyes again and smirked, then continued, "Can't be purely for my enjoyment, can it?" When Siobhan didn't answer her, she glanced back. "Oh, you've got that look."

"What look?" Siobhan asked, defensive, eyebrows furrowed.

"The look Benji gets when Ethan's about to do something very illegal," Henrietta told her over the rim of her coffee cup, then took a sip

Siobhan made her Really? face. "Did you just make a Mission Impossible reference?"

"What? It's Tom Cruise!" Siobhan rolled her eyes. Henrietta elbowed her side and leaned closer. "Who are we meeting here? Is this top secret?"

"Your companion talks too much," a new voice interrupted. It was dulcet and heavy with a European accent. Henrietta looked up. The woman joining them had long silver hair that could only be described as moonlight. There was grace in her movements as she settled in beside Siobhan and across from Henrietta.

"She's not my companion," Siobhan said. "Henry, this is Delphini Deveraux. Delphi, this is Henry Wingrave."

Delphini's voice rung with recognition. "Wingrave?" she asked, but Henrietta was too busy squinting at her, trying to place her accent.

"Are you French?" she asked. Against Delphini's polished accent, Henrietta's words sounded flat and unskilful.

"Half," Delphini answered warily.

"What's the other half of you?" Henrietta asked not unkindly but brash and unmannered still.

Siobhan stomped her foot on Henrietta's under the table to silence her. As the redhead cursed to herself, she turned to Delphini. "What is it?" she asked. Her voice had changed, it sounded heavy. "You sounded concerned on the phone." 

Delphini's lips parted as if to answer but then her eyes glanced over Henrietta who was looking between the two women with unwavering interest. Siobhan, picking up on it, said, "It's okay. You can trust her." She glanced at Henrietta then back at Delphini. "Trust me."

Convinced, Delphini disclosed, "There have been some rumors. Many of us are unsettled."

Henrietta's eyebrows shot up. "Witches are scared?"

"About what?" Siobhan asked.

Delphini pursed her lips. She certainly did not like to admit she was scared. More so that she was scared of a demon. It did not have often that witches, the keepers of the balance of nature, be afraid of anything at all. But it was true and it was happening. With the slithering whispers that garnered the supernatural communities, it was best to be safe than sorry. "Lilith," she said.

Siobhan sighed and gave Henrietta a look. It meant, This is bigger than we thought. It meant, What the hell is going on? It meant, Do you think all of this is related? Siobhan said, "Look, Delphi, we're looking into it. Don't be scared - it's - just, if you hear something let us know."

Delphini's eyebrows furrowed. When she frowned, the sides of her lips turned down to make a perfect crescent. "Something like?"

"Like anything with the involvement of something called seals," Siobhan said, "or Lilith or freaky deaths in general."

Delphini blinked. Henrietta could see that she was thinking, it was written all over her face. "Does death by razor blades count?" she asked in a quiet voice as if she wasn't sure.

Henrietta swallowed the bite of food in her mouth. "Death by a thousand cuts?" she inquired.

Delphini shrugged. "They were found in his mouth and stomach," she answered matter-of-factly.

Henrietta stared. She pointed at Delphini with her fork. "Yeah, Delphi," she said sarcastically, "like those. Where?"

Delphini wrote them the address on a tissue and Henrietta snatched it, looking at the silver-haired witch oddly.

HENRIETTA relaxed behind the wheel of her Chevy and shut the door. Siobhan poked her head in through the window, gripping the door with its window all the way down. "Sure you don't want me to come along?" she asked, her voice a little unsettled. She didn't want Henrietta to face whatever Lilith had cooked on her own.

"No, it's fine," Henrietta replied. "I got this. Besides," she shrugged and inserted the key in the ignition, "if I don't got this I'll give you a call and you can be there in a couple of hours."

"Unless, of course, you're already dead," Siobhan pointed out as the care roared to life. "Then my going there afterward would mean nothing."

"I mean," Henrietta pouted, "someone would have to claim the body."

"God, Henry," Siobhan flicked her forehead, "you're morbid."

Henrietta grinned. "Thanks."

Siobhan sighed through her nose at the antics of her friend. "Just be safe, okay?"

MERRYVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT
MERRYVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA

HENRIETTA reached the small town somewhere around four in the evening and made a beeline for the police station. The Sheriff greeted her and she informed him about her interest in the incident that had happened earlier today.

She settled on a chair across from him as he said, "I didn't know this was an FBI type of case."

She chuckled quietly and shook her head, glancing at her shoes. "It's not, really," she made a face and looked back at the Sheriff, "but I was in town and my boss hates me." She rolled her eyes dramatically.

The Sheriff chuckled. "Well, the crime is still pretty fresh."

"Yeah, I heard about it and just wanted to take a look. I mean," her eyebrows furrowed, "if that's alright with you."

"Sure, sure," he nodded. "Still baffles me how he managed to swallow one blade, never mind four. But I'm guessing you see these kinds of stuff all the time."

"Oh, you wouldn't believe it," Henrietta mumbled to herself as the Sheriff sifted through the files on his desk.

"Here you go, Agent Bonham," he handed her the file, beige-colored and rough beneath her fingers. "That's all we have now on Luke Wallace. Coroner's report is still pending."

She gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you, Sheriff."

When Henrietta left the station, she could feel her stomach growling. She tossed the file beside her as she settled behind the Chevelle's wheel and decided to find a diner, then a motel.

The town road remained lonely and deserted as the afternoon peaked. The clouds covered the sun though, covering the day in a pall of melancholy.

The walls along the road were covered in vibrant graffiti but the themes were morbid. An uneasiness settled over Henrietta.

MOONLIGHT MOTEL
MERRYVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA

HENRIETTA had decided to wait for the coroner's report before going to visit Mrs. Wallace, the wife of the decreased Luke Wallace.

So instead she now sat with the case file open in front of her on the motel bed with its uncomfortable mattress and rough sheets. They felt almost familiar. All these new places, these new people every day, but the same old mattress and the same old sheets and the same old thin pillow. She had forgotten what a bed in a home felt like but she could imagine. Oh yes, she could imagine -- the dip of the fluffy mattress underneath, the feathers stuffed in the pillow that cradled her head, the cold softness of the satin sheets against her skin, the warmth of the heavy blanket --

Her eyes shot open from the loud ringing beside her. Her heart skipped a beat. She hadn't realized when she had dozed off, but her phone was ringing now and she reached for across the bed.

"Hey, Father," she greeted. It was Andrew on the other end.

"Henry."

"Wow," Henrietta chuckled softly, "you sound rough."

Andrew sighed on the other end. "The demon, it escaped."

"What?" The disappointment in Henrietta's voice made Andrew cringe. "No, no, no. How?"

"It was my fault." It had been his fault. Siobhan had warned him not to go to the warehouse, not to try anything, not to get too close.

He heard Henrietta sigh. She was still disturbed about the ordeal. He could imagine her running her hand down her face in frustration.

"Nevermind that," she said a moment later, collecting herself. "Are you okay?" Henrietta had priorities. Saying otherwise would be untrue.

"Yes, I'm fine," he told her. "You? Is there a case?"

Henrietta rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes. She had been up for too long, two days straight now. "I mean, unless it's a very elaborate Halloween prank, I'd say yes."

"Okay, well, get some sleep," Andrew told her, his voice dripping with concern. When she didn't answer, he pressed. "Okay, Henry?"

"Yeah, okay. Okay." She hung up. She tossed the cell back on the bed and stared at the case file glaring back at her. As a headache started to originate in the back of her skull, she pinched the bridge of her nose.

With a noise of frustration, she got up and walked to her duffle. Opening the zip, she fetched a couple of the mini bottles of vodka she had stashed in and a thick book covered in a red book jacket with gold leaf lettering and design.

She settled back on the bed, unscrewed one of the mini bottles of vodka, and poured some of it in the glass from the bedside table.

She brought the alcohol to her lips and then opened the lore book in her lap with a thump.

WALLACE HOUSE
MERRYVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA

One Day Before Halloween

THE aroma of coffee filled the whole car and Henrietta took a sip of her piping hot beverage then cringed. It was too hot for her taste, but she was desperately trying to stay awake. She rubbed her eyes again, then grabbed the case file from beside her. Reaching far, she pushed open the glove compartment and fetched her very real fake FBI badge. As Aerosmith's Dream On came to an end, she turned off the radio.

She climbed out of the car and shut the door behind her. The words from the lore book were still roaming behind her eyes. Her eyes found the suburban house and she sighed. Another place, another family destroyed. She walked down the driveway and up the short flight of stairs, failing to notice the Impala shining in the sun, sitting gloriously on the curb. She raised her hand to knock on the door when it pulled open. A surprise settled on her face. This only ever happened when she waited outside Siobhan's apartment. 

But then her eyebrows shot up and she pursed her lips. Behind Mrs. Wallace who had opened the door stood two men in suits with the same comically angry expression as her. Henrietta gave pained smile. "Great," she muttered, quiet frustration simmering under the fake smile plastered on her face.

BIDDING goodbye to Mrs. Wallace, the three of them made their way back to where the Impala was parked. Henrietta growled in frustration and slapped the Impala's hood. "You have to stop stealing my cases!"

"Hey," Dean slapped her hand away from his car, "don't assault Baby."

Sam was more concerned with her verbal objection. "Your case?" he asked.

"I was here first." Henrietta held up Luke Wallace's case file now housing the coroner's report that she had had to get up early to collect from the ME.

"I'll take that," Dean snatched the case file from her hands and tossed something to Sam. But Henrietta, already in the motion of reaching for the file, caught it instead. She looked down at it inquisitively and frowned. "Hex bag?"

Sam shook his head at Henrietta and glanced at his brother. "Hey, Dean why don't you go see what you can dig up on Luke Wallace while me and Nancy Drew here start to unpack whatever this is," he gestured to the hex bag.

Dean grinned. "That sounds like a great plan."

"Wait, what, no," Henrietta put her hands up in objection, "that is a terrible plan."

Sam though wasn't hearing any of it, and pulled her by her arm towards the Chevelle while Dean got back in the Impala. Henrietta sat behind the wheel of her car with a pout, air filling her cheeks, highlighting her anger and frustration towards the Winchester brothers. Did they have to be so annoying? Sam sat shotgun and picked up her coffee cup to take a sip.

"Hey," she protested, starting the car, "that's mine!"

"Yeah, okay," he replied, voice unbothered, still taking a sip.

"I can't function without coffee, you know," she frowned. "It's like my oxygen."

ROOM 126, MOONLIGHT MOTEL
MERRYVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA

HENRIETTA had her legs stretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles as she sat on one of the beds in the boys' room, which by the looks of it seemed to be Dean's. They had analyzed every ingredient that had been enclosed in the hex bag and now Sam was telling her what had happened since they had last seen each other. And Henrietta seemed to be having a lot of fun.

"Dracula?" she asked, laughing. "The real Dracula? Two pointy fangs and all?" She brought her index fingers at the edge of her mouth, imitating fangs and Sam grinned.

"Turns out: shapeshifter with a little too much monster obsession."

She chuckled. "That'll do." She raked her fingers through her hair and Sam caught the light reflecting off the wound on her cheek. He frowned.

"How'd you get that?" he asked and pointed to his own cheek.

Henrietta brushed her fingers along the still healing bruise and scrunched her nose. She had gotten it from the last case she had worked. "Ah. Werewolf in Jackson, Ohio," she shrugged. Sam nodded, concern still not wiped from his expression. 

Henrietta toyed with the amulet around her neck, chewing on her bottom lip. Dean wasn't here. This was a good a time as any. Since she had made their grudging acquaintance, Henrietta had not been able to let go of the gripping feeling of knowing Dean. Not just knowing, of recognizing. But she had not been able to understand from where, not until he had disclosed that he had died and had been to Hell. That's when her gears had started turning. Time was fluid in the supernatural world -- past, present, future they were all existing at the same moment. 

She had remembered Dean's name from Hell. She had remembered his voice from Hell. But she still didn't know why she knew. Every time she dug deeper to find the memory all she heard were echoes of apologies and consolations. She looked up at Sam from across the room. A silence had settled and it felt heavy with unsaid things. Henrietta hesitated a moment before sliding off the bed and coming to sit straight across from Sam on the coffee table.

He looked up from his computer screen towards her, eyebrows raised up in surprise. 

"Hey," she started quietly, "I got a question."

Sam noticed the shift in her mood and his eyebrows knitted together. "Yeah?" he asked, unsure.

"Does -- "

The door creaked as it opened and Dean shuffled in, tossing his keys on the table under the window. Henrietta looked over her shoulder and stood up, walking back towards the bed. Dean shrugged off his jacket and dumped it on the bed then unwrapped a piece of candy before tossing it in his mouth.

Sam made a face at that. "Really? After that guy choked down all those razor blades?"

"It's Halloween, man," Dean reasoned through a mouthful of candy.

Henrietta picked up her phone from the bed and glanced at the screen before turning back towards the boys just as Sam replied to his brother, "Yeah, for us every day is Halloween."

Dean sat down on the arm of the couch and looked at Sam's research. "Don't be a downer. Anything interesting?"

"Sure," Henrietta replied. "We were just talking about your ghost sickness." She smiled condescendingly at Dean.

Dean made a face at her then glared at Sam. "Nothing's sacred here," he muttered.

Sam chuckled. "Well, we're on a witch hunt, that's for sure, but this isn't your typical hex bag." He pointed to the now open hex bag on the table. There was a silver piece, the size of a coin, and something small and charred in addition to what looked like a dried-up flower.

Henrietta walked closer and sat on the bed closest to them.

"Hmm, no?"

Sam picked up the dried-up flower-looking piece. "Goldthread, an herb that's been extinct for two hundred years. And this – " he picked up the silver piece, "is Celtic, and I don't mean some new age knock-off. It looks like the real deal, like 600 years old real."

Dean picked up the small charred thing and smelled it.

"And um . . . " Henrietta pursed her lips, "that is the charred metacarpal bone of a newborn baby."

"Ugh," he put the bone down, disgusted. "Gross."

Sam picked it up. "Relax man, it's like, at least a hundred years old."

"Oh, right, like that makes it better? Witches, man, they're so friggin' skeevy."

"Hey, my most trusted advisor is a witch," Henrietta said, sounding offended and defensive.

"That . . ." Dean said as he got up from the arm of the couch and settled beside her on the bed, "explains so much."

Henrietta frowned and kicked him in the shin.

"It takes a pretty powerful one to put a bag like this together," Sam continued. "More juice than we've ever dealt with, that's for sure."

Henrietta pouted and turned to Dean. "What about you? Find anything on the victim?"

"This Luke Wallace?" Dean answered. "He was so vanilla that he made vanilla seem spicy."

Sam scoffed at their lack of leads.

"I can't find any reason," Dean shook his head, "why somebody would want this guy dead."

IT was a few hours later as the twilight had begun to fall that Dean had gotten a call from the Sheriff. He had informed Sam and Henrietta then about the recent death and asked them to put on their suits. It hadn't taken any of them long to do so and Henrietta had claimed the backseat of the Impala while Dean drove them to the scene of the crime.

At the house, they descend down a flight of stairs to the basement where the party had been held. The red and blue lights from outside flashed on Henrietta's face as they reached the bottom of the steps. A guy in a 'Forensic' jacket took pictures of the bobbing for apples tub, and a police officer talked to one of the witnesses.

Sam started to go join the questioning but Dean put his hand up, stopping him. "I got this one," he said and licked his lips, eyes trailing the witness, a girl in a cheerleader Halloween costume. Henrietta rolled her eyes.

Sam sighed. "Two words: " he said, "jail bait."

"I would never – " Dean started.

"Yeah, right," Henrietta quipped.

Sam just rolled his eyes at Dean and walked over to the couch and started lifting the cushions, looking for a hex bag. Dean smirked behind Sam's back.

"It's just so weird," Henrietta heard Tracy's voice as she accompanied Dean across the room. "The water in the tub – it wasn't hot, I had just been in there myself."

"Your friend didn't happen to know a man named Luke Wallace?" Dean asked, making the blonde girl turn around and face him. Dean held up his badge. "Agent Seger, F.B.I." He noticed Henrietta beside him and said, annoyed. "This is Agent Bonham." Henrietta smiled, pleased.

"Um, who's Luke Wallace?" Tracy asked, confused.

"He died yesterday," Henrietta cleared.

"I don't know who that is."

Sam held up a hex bag that he found in the couch cushions. Both Dean and Henrietta glanced over Tracy's shoulders and caught it, then looked back at Tracy.