Chapter One

Now the nights are so long, my sorrow runs deep.
Nothing is worse than a night without sleep.
I walk out alone, I look at the sky,
Too empty to sing, too lonesome to cry.

October 31st 2258

"Christ..."

It was the smell that hit him first. Warm and sweet, sickly sweet, carried on the faint, cold, breeze, damp in the air, teasing his senses. He could taste it in the back of his throat, thick and cloying. He gagged, sucking in shallow breaths, the sickly sweet taste and smell lingering like blood, like a memory. Like ghosts.

"Mind your step, Detective."

"Shit."

He grimaced, biting at his lip. Picking his way through the strewn bodies, tossed aside, discarded, broken, torn, blood pooling, stretching from corpses like rivers, like grasping, desperate fingers, searching for escape. For salvation. The lights flickering, casting crazed shadows across the floor, drawing strange shapes on the defaced walls.

He looked at, but pretended not to see the sigils daubed on the walls, the blood still running, slipping down the walls. He'd see them soon enough.

He'd see them in his dreams.

He shivered, running his hands over his face, his eyes burning beneath his fingers. It'd been a long time since he'd gotten a full nights sleep. He could it, drawing closer, laughter and anger in the cold night air.

The flash of a CSI camera ripped through the flickering light, through the fragile calm. Danny Messer clenched his jaw, breathing shallowly, raising his camera to his yes, pressing the shutter.

The light seemed cold, clean, pure.

Holy.

He grinned bitterly, scratching at his jaw, red rimmed eyes blinking rapidly. Things were bad, getting worse.

"Hey Messer."

"Hey Flack." Danny adjusted his stance, snapping off another photo. "You draw this one as well?"

"Guess I'm on Gerard's shit list." Flack slipped a piece of gum into his mouth, chewing rapidly, grateful for something other than the taste of carnage to focus on. "You flying solo?"

"Yeah." Another photo. "Yeah, we're stretched pretty thin."

Stretched pretty thin.

Weren't they all?

xxxXXXxxx

He didn't ask about Lindsay or Lucy. Somehow, he knew that Danny wouldn't want to talk about them. Not here. Somehow it wouldn't be right to mention their names in the middle of this scene, taint them by association.

Instead, he stood and watched Danny work, his fingers and body craving a cigarette, just to take that sickly sweet taste out of his mouth.

Brooding, thinking about the steadily growing list of names under his own on the whiteboard, carefully printed in red ink, a lengthy unbroken chain, blood seeping from a cut.

He smiled bitterly. Any wonder he was on Gerard's shit list?

"How many is this?"

"Five. Five in five days." Don forced down a sudden burst of hysterical, frightened laughter. "I'm primary on the whole mess."

The fifth scene in five days. The bodies torn apart, the floors and furnishings, soaked, saturated with blood, strange pictures, sigils, drawn on the walls. Five scenes, over twenty bodies, no witnesses, no forensics. No clue.

And blood. So much blood. He couldn't get it out of his clothes, off his skin, standing in the shower until the water ran cold, scrubbing at his skin.

Feeling like he was unraveling, falling apart strand by strand. Hearing the echoing, mocking sound of laughter.

"We'll get him Flack."

"How? We got nothing so far, Danny. All we're doing is praying that the bastard makes a mistake."

"He will." Danny snapped off another photo, his wedding ring glinting, oddly comforting in the swinging light. "They always do."

Running on faith. On the same damn blind Faith that Mac Taylor always installed in his CSIs. That if they did their jobs, followed the evidence, then the killer would be delivered to them by the grace of God.

It didn't work like that. The real world didn't work like that.

The world was the Devil's domain.

"Detective!"

The tremor of excitement in Callaghan's voice drew Flack from his dark thoughts, glancing across the small battered bar. "Yeah?"

"We got a witness."

xxxXXXxxx

It was hard to see Flack like this. Worn down, battered. Carrying the weight of those ghosts, those open cases.

Times like this, he was glad he was just a CSI.

Danny moved carefully around the crime scene, avoiding the still lying pools of blood. Studying the sigils, the obscure taunting sigils, drawn in rusting blood.

He'd seen those sigils, on the walls of the other scenes.

His pager buzzed, clipped on his belt, angry and demanding. He ignored it, hoping they'd pass the call onto someone else.

But they were all stretched pretty thin.

xxxXXXxxx

"Its him."

"I know."

"Shit." He drifted in the driver's seat of the car, resting his head in his hand, leaning against the door. Watching the Police move around the entrance of the bar, the flashing lights a fragile defence against the encroaching night. "What the hell is he doing?"

She glanced at him, pity and anger warring in her dark eyes. "You know what he's doing."

"He's still my baby brother."

"Not anymore." She reached out her hand, covering his hesitantly, her pure porcelain skin contrasting with his. "Not anymore."

"Whatever else he's done, whatever else he might be, he's still my brother. I let him down. I should have protected him better."

"It's not your fault. He made his own decisions..."

"Are any of your...family saying anything about him? About this?"

"No." She took her hand away, folding her fingers together, bowing her head over her folded fingers. "But then I'm a disobedient child in my father's eyes."

So many prayers for forgiveness. So many unanswered prayers.

"Look." He pointed out the window, her eyes following the motion. "Looks like they're done here."

"So what do we do?"

"I got a friend here."

xxxXXXxxx

"I saw it! I saw it all!"

His eyes were wide and staring, focused on nothing, hands in the air, beseeching heaven.

"I saw it! He is come!"

Flack cleared his throat, leaning closer, into the witness's eyeline, forcing him to focus on him. "Saw who?"

His face twisted, awe and horror washing across his face. "The Devil. I saw the Devil. He is come to earth and the world will shake at his approach."

Flack sighed in frustration, throwing his pen down on the desk, settling back in his chair. Four previous scenes and not witnesses. Then he got a break, finally a fucking break....

And this was the shit he got fed?

"Jesus Christ...."

"Jesus?" The man laughed, his eyes wide and staring, sanity slipping, draining away, unfocused. "Jesus is gone..."

xxxXXXxxx

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word..."

Lindsay shifted Lucy against her shoulder, rocking her, her voice low, murmuring, warm beneath the sound of her baby's sobs.

"Mama's going to buy you a mockingbird."

Not that her songs seemed to do much good. All Lucy did was cry, especially since Danny went onto nights. The apartment just seemed so cold, so empty with him gone.

"I know sweetie, I know." Tiny fingers grabbed at her shirt, gripping the fabric tight. "I miss him too. But he'll be home soon."

Still cradling her baby, she walked over to the window, staring out across the darkened city, feeling the chill emanating from the glass, the lights tearing fractured patterns in the dark fabric of the night sky. Sometimes, Danny could get her to settle...

She couldnt though. Lucy never settled for her, always craved her daddy. She always settled for him.

"Please, Lucy, sweetheart...." Her voice almost lost, almost breaking beneath the sound of the child's cries, the sight of another long sleepless night stretching before her. "Please, sweetheart..."

The child cried on.

The door knocked, shaking in its frame. Then again, hard, intrusive.

"Just a second!" Her eyes narrowed, hunting, searching through the apartment for her PPW. "I'm coming!" Finding the gun, slipping it into her trousers at the small of her back.

Jerking the door open, her eyes widening, her face collapsing into a tired, welcoming smile.

"Dean!"

"Hey, Lindsay." Shifting from foot to foot, the familiar roguish smile twisting his mouth, a slight red haired girl by his side. "Can we come in? Please?"

"Sure." She opened the door, leading them into the cluttered apartment. "I'm sorry about the mess. I....we dont get much chance to tidy up anymore."

"Nah, its good, Lindsay. Homely." He made a small, reluctant gesture. "This is Anna."

"Hey..."

Lucy took one look at her mother's visitors and started to scream. Her face flushed with crimson, tears flooding down plump cheeks.

Her shouler slumped in frustration, feeling all those fears and anger starting to bubble up. "Dammit Lucy!"

"It's okay." The woman, Anna, stepped past her, sweeping Lucy into her arms. "Let me take her." Starting to sing, softly, gently, a warm caress over the squirming baby.

"She doesn't like...."

Lucy stopped squirming, her eyes fixed on Anna, silent, relaxing in her arms, breathing easing.

"God..."

Anna glanced over her shoulder, her mouth twisted in a strange, sad smile.

"I've never been able to get her to settle." She ran a hand over her face, rubbing at her stinging eyes. "You're an angel."

"Yeah, she gets that a lot." Dean's voice was strange, coloured with bitter humour. "We need your help, Linds."

"Yeah. You always do." She slipped the gun out of her trousers, putting it on the table, moving so she could keep an eye on Lucy and Anna. "So. Where's Sam?"

xxxXXXxxx

October 31st 2113

He could sense their fear as soon as he walked into the bar. Breaking before him like waves before the prow of a ship.

Like victims on a rack.

Scattering like the frightened rabbits they were.

She followed in his wake, her eyes seeking, searching. Mouth drawn in a cruel smile, she put her hand on his shoulder.

Even through his clothes, he could feel her touch against his skin, stirring his senses, his lust, his body responding to her like it always did.

"There. In the corner."

He nodded and walked over, the crowd in the bar scattering, clearing, abandoning his prey to its fate. He could feel his hunger, his need twisting inside him.

He stopped at the table, looming over the frail old man. Staring down at him with the contempt of a God for his own creation. "You know who I am?"

"Yes." He lifted the glass to his mouth with a trembling hand.

"Who am I?"

"You're Sam Winchester."

End of Chapter One.