Dean finished painting the last of the sigils onto the floor while Clark worked on getting the holy water into the sprinkler system. Lex was in the next room, transferring his recording of an exorcism to a speaker system. All three of them had drawn anti-possession symbols on their skin in several places; Dean would have usually just worn a pendant, but Lex was concerned about them getting stolen. He figured he'd probably get it tattooed when he had more time. His dad hasn't exactly been thrilled about his first tattoo, but Dean was pretty sure he would approve of this one.

Sam wasn't with them. He wasn't even close to the building, as far as Dean knew. Clark had made some weird excuse for him, about having to patrol somewhere or something. Clark was a terrible liar. But Dean wasn't surprised that Sam had warmed his way out of the hunt; he was just surprised that Sam had abandoned Clark in the process. Then again, Sam didn't have the same values about family that Dean did. He shouldn't be expecting Sam to follow the same rules.

For a moment, it hurt. But then he shook it off. They had demons to exorcise.

Lex came into the room. "That's done," he said. "The recordings should wait for my signal now."

"Good," Dean said. "Can you help me get the carpet up over these?"

"Oh, let me do it," Clark said, and he jogged over to grab the carpets, but he struggled to lift them.

"Not really a one person job, man," Dean said, and he helped to pick them up, but they really didn't seem all that heavy to him. He had always thought of Clark as being stronger than him; maybe he had underestimated himself, or overestimated Clark. Or maybe Clark had gotten out of shape from not working on the farm during his time in Metropolis.

They finished covering the floors. Dean couldn't help but noticed that Clark and Lex kept their distance from each other, but he didn't comment on it. He and Sam were having their own issues; Dean didn't have the right to criticize Clark and Lex's.

He grabbed the items they would need for the summoning and approached Clark. "Now, stick to the plan. That's life or death, you got it?"

"I get it."

"You summon. You offer a deal. She calls for help. You turn on the sprinklers. That'll signal Lex to exorcise."

"I got the plan, Dean."

"You don't have to do this, you know."

"You just said I should stick to the plan."

"If you do this, yeah, but... we can think of another way."

"I'm guessing that's what you've been trying to do this whole time."

Dean hadn't, actually. He had been more focused on making sure Clark would be safe if they carried out this plan, by thinking through every angle. "Uh..."

"Protective detail around the farm," Lex said. "24/7. Trained in all things supernatural."

Clark smiled wryly. "My dad will love that."

"And if you told him what you're doing right now?"

"Lex, these demons have already shown they're willing to play a long game. You can't keep security guards around my house forever. And how are you going to convince your guards that demons even exist?"

"My staff believe whatever I pay them to believe."

Dean had a hard time believing that, but he had said stupid stuff trying to defend Sam, so he let it go. "Let's get a move on. It's already getting dark."

Lex shook his head, sighing, Dean gave Clark a couple of claps on the shoulder, and he and Lex retreated to a breezeway near the building. They needed to be out of sight so the demons would fall into the trap, but also close enough to help Clark if he needed it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Lex didn't say anything, and Dean didn't push. They just waited silently as the area grew darker and darker, until Dean couldn't even see his hand in front of his face.

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Clark hadn't had much exposure to magic. From what he could tell, he was generally weak to it. It didn't make him sick like kryptonite did, but if, say, a demon used magic to overpower him, it would work just as well as it would on any human.

Of course, right now, he was human. He hated this feeling: the endless exhaustion, the little pains that never really went away, but it was better than kryptonite exposure. If he was honest with himself, he still felt a little sick looking at all of that green tinted water that he knew was in the pipes surrounding him, but that was more in his head. The stuff was usually torture; he didn't like being around it even if it wouldn't hurt him.

One way or another, Clark never would have imagined himself sitting over a bowl of spell ingredients, reciting incantations, with candles and sigils and the whole bit. His parents had never exactly forbidden him to get involved in any of that—they had never had to. He wasn't interested in this world.

Still, he followed the plan. Like Dean said.

"...ad ligandum eos pariter eos coram me," he stammered out, throwing the last ingredients into the bowl. It burst into flames, and he leapt back; the heat stung his skin in a way he wasn't used to.

For a second, he thought nothing had happened.

Then there was a woman standing in front of him.

Clark stood up straight. It wasn't Helen. Wasn't he supposed to be summoning Helen?

She gave him a little smile. "If it isn't the delinquent best man."

It was Helen—she just had a different host this time. She hadn't possessed Madison again. Some part of Clark was relieved by that, though he wondered who this woman was.

This wasn't the time to be thinking about that. Clark cleared his throat. It took a lot of effort to keep his voice from shaking. "I want to make a deal."

She scoffed. "Do I look like a crossroads demon to you?"

He wasn't even sure exactly what that meant. "I think you're agree to the terms of this one." He took a couple of steps back.

She stayed where she was. That wasn't part of the plan. She was supposed to step forward into the trap. "And why is that?"

"Because…" He didn't have any words. His next lines depended on her being trapped.

"Bored." She smirked, waved, and disappeared.

Clark gasped. What was he supposed to do now? He was sure the demons wanted him for his powers. Was it possible she had sensed he was powerless? He doubted it—she hadn't seemed surprised, and she hadn't made any sarcastic comments about it, but she also hadn't fallen for the trap. Did she know it was a trap?

Clark looked down at the spell work. He had burned all of his ingredients. He couldn't summon her again, and even if he did, what if she appeared beside a trap instead of in it again and then ran off? He wasn't even sure how many times he could summon a demon

He wasn't sure where to go from here. Dean had emphasized following the plan, but then Helen hadn't followed it.

Clark paced in the warehouse a little, and then he wandered outside to ask Dean what to do.

And he was ambushed.

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If Lex's father had taught him anything, it was how to sense when things weren't right.

He could smell a lie from a mile away, having practiced during the hundreds of business meetings he'd been forced to attend while he was growing up. He could predict a betrayal before the offender even knew he was going to stab Lex in the back. And by his teen years, he had learned when to make excuses to stay in his room and avoid his father after work, sensing the storm before it came.

But it was more than that. The air itself felt different when something was going wrong, when someone he cared about was in danger. He felt it before he heard it. "Something's not right," he whispered to Dean.

"Heard something?"

Lex didn't answer. He just stepped out of the breezeway and into the warm night air, clutching his holy water gun.

That's when he heard the scuffle. Two men—Lex doubted they were human—had Clark by the arms, dragging him, and two stood by. Clark's mouth was already taped shut, and although he struggled, barely a sound came out.

Lex shoved aside the shock at seeing Clark hurt. Part of him believed it was impossible, even though he had seen it before. He ran immediately at the group of demons and started spraying.

The demons screamed and backed away, and Clark stumbled. "Clark, run!" Lex yelled, but Clark's hands were tied behind his back, and one demon recovered enough from the water to grab onto the ropes. Lex sprayed him again, and Clark seized his opportunity, running toward Lex.

Lex spoke as fast as he could as the demons began to recover: "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis—"

A demon swung at him, and he dodged one blow, but a hard punch to the mouth silenced him. After that, he was swinging, kicking, anything he could do to keep from going down, to keep their attention away from Clark.

He managed to look past the demon he was fighting for long enough to survey the field. Lex was keeping one demon busy; Dean was fighting two, but he was starting to lose; one was beginning to drag Clark.

All at once, Lex felt himself flying backward, and his back slammed against the side of the warehouse, knocking the wind out of him.

A new man had appeared. A short man with a long black coat. The newcomer stalked toward him, hands in his pockets. The other demons straightened up, wiping blood and the last remnants of holy water away from their arms and faces, smirking.

The man smiled, and he spoke in a British accent dripping with sarcastic arrogance:

"Hello, boys."