Dean shouldn't have been surprised that the trap held Helen. If Bobby said the devil's trap would work, Dean should have believed it. And all the signs of demon activity were there—at least, according to Chloe's notes. But when Helen had walked straight through the meteor-ink traps in the hall, Dean had had reason to worry.

Maybe somehow demons were the opposite. Immune to meteor rock instead of sensitive to it. Dean knew he shouldn't have skipped over the more science-y sections of Chloe's notes. Sam never would have made that mistake.

Dean pushed the thought aside. He had to focus on this.

Helen blinked, and her eyes glowed green instead of black. "So you're the one Lex gets it from. I doubted Lionel raised him as a hunter."

"You've seen his research?"

"His room of obsession." She grinned, though it was almost more of a snarl. "But he's not much of a hunter. He's more of a . . . man of letters, if they weren't all dead."

"A man of letters? What's that?"

Helen scoffed. "Is that really what you trapped me here to find out?"

"No, you're right." He paced away from the circle and picked up the flask of clean holy water—the other flask had been infused with powdered meteor rock, like the ink, but he was starting to doubt that would help. He poured the water into a spray bottle and sprayed it at her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, then wiped her face, smirking.

Dean swallowed hard. If the holy water wouldn't hurt her, he didn't have any way to make her talk. Of course, he could threaten an exorcism, but he was going to do that anyway—and he was sure she knew it.

On a whim, he poured out the contents of the spray bottle and replaced it with the meteor-infused water, and he sprayed that at her.

She screamed, gray-green smoke rising from her skin in the place where the water had landed. "What the hell is that?" she cried.

Huh. Apparently the rules about the meteor rock were more complicated than he'd thought. "Holy water with meteor rock. I'm guessing you haven't felt that before."

He raised the spray bottle again, and she flinched back, yelling, "No! Please!"

Dean nodded and lowered the bottle. He could work with this. "Let me explain to you how this is going to work. I'll be asking the questions. You give me what I need, and I let you out of this trap."

"You're just going to exorcise me anyway!"

He sprayed her again, and she screamed, the skin on her face blistering.

"Ready to talk?"

She breathed hard as the water burned away, and she pleaded, "I'm not the one you want! I'm just following orders."

"What'd you do to Luthor?"

"It wasn't my choice to kill him. I had my orders."

"Plane go down anywhere near land?"

"It doesn't matter. No one could have survived the landing. The plane was damaged enough to sink."

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"You didn't know Lex very well, did you?"

"What do you want from me?"

"I want to know why him. Is it money you want? Power?"

"I don't know anything, I'm not—"

He sprayed her again, several times, until she was crying out, "No! Wait! All I know is—" And then she sputtered and screamed.

He lowered the spray bottle. "You were saying?"

"It's not about Lex. It's about this whole town. The meteor rocks have . . . effects on people. You're a hunter, you should know." She took a moment to catch her breath as the last of the holy water boiled away. "They make us stronger. Harder for hunters to come after, unless they have—" she eyed the spray bottle— "special knowledge."

"So, what, you were supposed to marry Lex to learn about the town?"

"I was reporting back to my superior. I'm not the only one." She almost smiled. "We've got a . . . research team in Smallville."

"A team of demons?"

"Yeah."

"All infected with the meteor rocks."

"As far as I know."

"Where are they?"

"I don't even know who they are. That's above my pay grade."

"Who do you report to?"

"I report through networks of demons, I don't know his name. They have very clear ways of sending messages, but I don't know who my superior is.

He splashed her with a bit more holy water, and she screamed, "I don't! I DON'T KNOW!"

Dean frowned. She'd caved pretty quickly the last couple of times; maybe she really was just a grunt. He'd have to get the geiger counter and look for other signs of meteor-infected demon activity.

Her usefulness had run out. He took a step back from the circle and began to recite: "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."

Dean looked up at her. She was just staring at him.

He was sure this was right. He'd gone over it a hundred times. "Ergo draco maledicte, et omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae. Perditionis venenum propinare."

She laughed. "It's not working. Is it?"

Maybe this was something that did require the help of meteor rocks, though Dean didn't know how to incorporate that into the exorcism. Maybe only a meteor mutant could exorcise an infected demon?

"Oh, you pathetic little hunter. You really didn't do your research going into this, did you?"

In a rage, Dean knocked the holy water containers off the table. The spray bottle fell open when it hit the ground, and the water leaked toward the circle of paint . . .

Dean lunged for it, but it was too late. The edge of the circle dissolved, and Helen's head fell back, her mouth opening wide as green smoke poured out in a fast, dense cloud, then the entire cloud raced for the window and disappeared.

Dean swore. Well, at least the demon was gone.

Helen—the host girl—swayed, then stumbled.

"Whoa, whoa." Dean rushed into the circle, catching her before she fell. He helped her to sit down, then he left her to grab the one container of clean holy water he hadn't knocked off the table, and he helped her drink it. "You okay?"

"I . . . ah." She winced, holding her head.

Dean supposed that was a stupid question. "Do I need to call an ambulance?" he clarified.

She shook her head. "I'm . . . okay." She took another sip of water on her own.

"Helen, I'm so sorry, but you—you were..."

"Madison."

Dean blinked. "Who?"

"My name is Madison." Her voice still sounded hoarse, but it was a little stronger.

"You're not Helen?"

"That's the demon's name."

Dean let out his breath. Lex had never called her Madison. That meant she'd been a demon the whole time. If he was alive, he was going to be devastated when he found out. "Okay, Madison, you were possessed by a demon for at least the last few months."

She laughed wryly. "Think I hadn't figured that out?"

Dean had heard of a lot of possession victims winding up a lot worse than she seemed to be. He still wanted her to see a doctor, but maybe she was up for a few questions now. "Was Helen telling the truth?"

"Yeah. She doesn't know who's in charge. But she knows where the plane went down."

"Do… Do you know?"

Madison nodded. "I can give you coordinates. But I don't know how you're going to get there."

"Do you think Lex might be alive?"

"I hope so. He's a good man, Helen manipulated him. She was a good actress. But…" She coughed a couple of times. "I don't know. Helen . . . teleported out of the plane, but it was pretty badly damaged."

Dean frowned. He wondered whether Madison was in love with Lex, like Helen had pretended to be, but this wasn't the time for it. "Look, as far as anyone knows, you're in control of the Luthor estate. If you ask for a helicopter—"

"I—I don't think I'm up for a trip just yet."

"Not for you. For me. So I can go try to find Lex."

"Oh." Madison sat up a little straighter. "Yeah. Just tell me what I need to do."