A week later,
Lincoln, Nebraska
Dean, Sam, and Bobby stood in front of the monitor, dressed in suits and coats, FBI impersonation routine as usual.
The security footage played again: a woman screaming, then slamming another woman's head into a shelf over a pair of shoes, over and over until people started pulling her off.
Dean grimaced, shaking his head slightly. "What is wrong with people?" he muttered. "I mean, I get shopping can get ugly, but this? Nobody goes full homicide over a pair of heels."
Bobby didn't take his eyes off the screen. "That ain't about shoes," he said.
Dean glanced at him. "Then what is it? Because I'm not seeing the usual signs. No smoke, no black eyes, no sulfur."
"That's the point," Bobby replied. "No sulfur means no possession."
Dean frowned, looking back at the footage. "So you're telling me she just… snapped like that?"
Before Bobby could answer, Sam leaned closer to the screen and rewound the clip.
"Wait," Sam said, pausing it.
He pointed at a man just before the attack—standing close to the woman, saying something brief before turning and walking away like nothing had happened.
"That guy," Sam said, narrowing his focus on the screen.
"Watch this," he added, freezing the frame and leaning in closer.
For a fraction of a second,
His eyes turned black.
Dean saw it.
"A demon?"
"He talks to her," Sam said, "and right after that, she loses it. No buildup, no argument—just immediate violence."
Dean shifted his attention back to the screen, but the earlier moment didn't leave him. He studied the footage again.
"So what, he just walks around flipping switches in people's heads?" Dean asked, tone sharper now.
Bobby gave a slow nod, eyes still on the frozen frame. "Looks like it. Doesn't need to ride them—just pushes them far enough."
Sam straightened, stepping back from the monitor. "Which means he's done it before," he said, "and he's going to keep doing it unless we stop him."
They stepped out of the store and headed toward the Impala, the late afternoon air carrying that uneasy stillness that never meant anything good.
"So," Bobby said as he walked alongside them, glancing between the two, "either of you call Henry? Because right now, I'd rather have extra muscle instead of guessing how many demons we're dealing with."
Sam opened the passenger door and got in. "I called him," he said, settling into the seat. "He said he'll be here by tonight."
Dean slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. "We'll be fine till then," he said, gripping the wheel. "It's not like we haven't handled demons before."
Bobby gave him a look as he got into the back. "That depends on how many we're talking about."
Dean pulled the car out. "Doesn't matter," he said. "We've sent enough of them back to hell already. We'll handle it."
***
On Henry's side,
He was stuck on a bus.
His car had died halfway, and for once he didn't have a backup plan ready. That left him with public transport, and within minutes he regretted the decision.
Music leaked from cheap earphones, someone argued loudly on a call, another person chewed like they were competing with the engine. No space, no quiet—just noise stacked on noise.
With heightened senses, it wasn't just annoying.
It was unbearable.
Henry leaned back slightly, eyes moving across the passengers more out of habit than interest—
Then something caught his attention—a flicker, a shadow that didn't match the body it clung to. He focused on it, eyes narrowing as it came into view, black and wrong.
'Demon,' he thought, his astral sense peeling past the surface just enough to confirm it.
At the same time, the man turned his head.
Their eyes met.
For a brief second, the smile on the man's face didn't belong to anything human.
He leaned toward the person beside him and whispered something.
The reaction was immediate.
The passenger stopped mid-conversation, then without warning slammed his phone straight into the face of the person sitting in front of him. The crack echoed through the bus.
Screams followed.
"What the hell—" Henry muttered, already shifting forward.
It spread fast.
People started shouting, then pushing, then hitting. Arguments turned into blows in seconds, like something had snapped across all of them at once. The confined space made it worse—nowhere to move, nowhere to escape.
And in the middle of it,
The demon smiled.
Henry exhaled slowly, already moving.
He slipped on the reinforced knuckle guards, the metal faintly marked with the Demon-Slaying engraving sigil etched into them earlier.
If he landed a clean hit to the face or heart, it would strike where it mattered—and the demon would die.
Then the shift happened.
One by one, the people nearest to him stopped fighting, their movements slowing as their attention shifted. Their breathing stayed heavy, eyes unfocused, all of them turning to lock onto him at once.
Henry glanced around at the circle forming, reading it instantly.
"Yeah… I'm not a fan of public violence," he said, tone steady as he adjusted his stance slightly. "Unless you push it."
They lunged all at once, bodies rushing in from every direction in the narrow aisle, hands grabbing, teeth clenched, movements uncoordinated but relentless.
*****
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