The next morning, the motel room door clicked open. Ruby stepped inside, stopping dead the moment she saw Dean leaning against the dresser, right beside Sam.
She recovered quickly, offering a tight smile. "So, Sam. I take it you explained our arrangement to your brother?"
"He explained," Dean cut in, low and threatening. He pushed off the dresser and stepped toward her.
"Let's get one thing straight, you black-eyed bitch. My brother might be desperate enough to use you as a GPS, but I don't trust a single syllable out of your mouth."
He drew the Colt from his waistband and leveled it at her chest, pulling the hammer back with a loud click.
Ruby's smile vanished. She didn't flinch, but her eyes locked onto the barrel.
"You see this?" Dean growled.
"Fully loaded with demon-killing rounds. You know exactly what it does. One bullet from this cylinder smokes you just as permanently as it smokes Lilith."
"You point us to the target. That's your only job. You pull any crap, you lie, you hesitate, or you even look at my brother the wrong way, I put a bullet between your eyes before you can think about smoking out. Are we clear?"
Ruby stared at the gun, then lifted her gaze to meet his. She raised her hands in mock surrender, letting out a sharp exhale.
"Crystal clear, Dean. I point, you shoot. Now put the gun away before you blow a hole in the wall. We've got a lot of ground to cover if we're going to catch her."
***
The Impala's engine cut out in the rain-slicked parking lot of a local hospital. Dean stared at the illuminated emergency room sign, grip tightening on the wheel.
"Why the hell are we at a hospital?" He glared at Ruby in the rearview mirror. "Thought you said we were tracking Lilith, not stealing bedpans."
"We are," Ruby said, leaning forward from the backseat. "Lilith needs a very specific diet to maintain her strength. Her minion is inside right now, stealing a newborn for her to consume."
Dean's stomach churned. "Sick bitch," he muttered, drawing his demon-killing knife.
They intercepted the demon in the deserted maternity ward corridor — a young blonde nurse, possessed, carrying a swaddled infant toward the fire exit.
The moment her solid black eyes locked onto them, the fight broke out.
It wasn't clean. Sam managed to snatch the baby to safety, but the nurse launched herself at Dean with supernatural strength, throwing him through a reinforced glass window in a shower of jagged shards.
Dean countered by tackling her into a supply closet and slamming a fire extinguisher against her skull until the meat suit stopped thrashing.
Five minutes later she was bound to a metal chair in the hospital's abandoned boiler room, trapped inside a spray-painted devil's trap.
Dean didn't ask nicely. After two minutes of holy water in her eyes and shallow, smoking cuts along her collarbone, she cracked.
"St. Mary's Convent!" the nurse screamed, voice distorted and dual-toned. "Ilchester, Maryland! Tomorrow night at midnight! That's where she'll be!"
"And the final seal?" Sam demanded, stepping closer. "What is it?"
"I swear I don't know!" She spat black blood onto the concrete.
Then a wet, rattling laugh bubbled out of her throat. She looked up at Dean with a sickening grin. "Doesn't matter anyway. You can't kill her. You can't stop what's coming, Winchester."
Dean raised the knife toward her chest. "Watch me."
Before the blade connected, she threw her head back and a thick cloud of black smoke erupted from her mouth, shooting up through the ceiling grate and vanishing, leaving the battered nurse slumped unconscious in the chair.
Dean stared at the grate, cursing, and slammed the knife back into its sheath. "Son of a bitch."
Ruby stepped out from the shadows, arms crossed. "The meat suit was right, Dean. You can't kick down the convent door and jump Lilith."
"Even with the Colt, she's the first demon Lucifer ever twisted. She can snap your spine with a flick of her wrist before your finger grazes the trigger."
"Then what's the play?" Sam asked. "We have the location and the gun. How do we buy the shot?"
Ruby reached into her jacket and pulled out a small, tightly bound burlap pouch, reeking of rotting herbs, dried blood, and sulfur. She tossed it to Dean. He caught it, wrinkling his nose.
"Highly concentrated hex bag," she said, tone dropping serious.
"Spent months gathering the ingredients in case it came down to this."
"Graveyard dirt, crushed bone, and a few dark arts components you really don't want to know about. When you find her, you don't aim the gun first. You throw the bag directly at her chest."
Dean weighed it in his palm. "And what does your little voodoo sack do?"
"The moment it makes contact with her host, it violently disrupts her demonic essence. Chokes out her power, temporarily paralyzes her connection to the meat suit. Weakens her just enough to stop her from vaporizing you instantly."
"For how long?" Sam asked.
"Two seconds," Ruby said flatly, holding both their eyes.
"Maybe three if you're lucky. Barely a window. But the second it hits her, she's stunned. You take that moment and put a bullet through her brain."
"You miss, you hesitate even a fraction of a heartbeat, the hex breaks, she kills you both, and Lucifer walks out of the cage."
Dean exchanged a hard look with Sam. Zero margin for error. A three-second window to save the world.
"I don't miss." He shoved the hex bag into his jacket pocket and drew the Colt, spinning the cylinder with a sharp metallic clack to check the rounds one last time. "Let's get to Maryland."
*****
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