December 31st, 2006

Poughkeepsie, New York

"It's cold." Sam says, unfolding himself from the passenger's seat and shutting the door behind him. The wind off the already-icy Hudson River rolls up the hill to the East, gaining speed all the way, and by the time it reaches their discreet parking spot it's got the power to slice right through layers of flannel and leather.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious." Dean mutters, puffing butts of breath onto his already-chilling hands.

They don't have to trek very far into the woods. When they get a visual through the trees on the bog-standard creepy cabin, they can still hear the distant sounds of a particularly raucous party at the college just south of the nature preserve. The word was that students had been jogging or hiking and disappearing; only to turn up down by the river dead, with torn and mutilated torsos.

Neither Sam nor Dean had been surprised when the coroner had mentioned that each one of them had been relieved of some oddly specific internal organs. A call to Bobby had confirmed what John's journal had suggested: they were dealing with a Kumiko – a vicious fox-spirit of Korean origin, in monster taxonomy, not too far from the Japanese Kitsune or the Chinese Huli Jing. Fortunately, the kill strategy for all three was more or less the same, so if they were a little off, well, that'd be alright. It'd end up just as dead in the end.

Something about it is fascinating, like the darkness between the trees stretches on into a slice of infinity, and if Sam just looked long enough, he thinks he could slip into it and be absorbed. He recognizes the almost hypnotized sensation quickly and breaks away, only to turn and see Dean in an unblinking stare through the trees just the same.

"Probably in there, right?" Sam swallows the anxious saliva pooling in his mouth.

"Always with the creepy old houses." Dean jokes grimly, hoping to ease Sam's nerves a little as he takes point. "I mean, would it kill 'em to put out a potted plant? Maybe clean the gutters once in a while? Is there some law that monster houses can't have a little curb appeal?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean catches a gratifying hint of a smirk on Sam's mouth. He slips his hand into his sleeve and nudges the seemingly ancient wooden door. It starts to swing, and then falls off its hinges entirely. Dean scrambles to catch it, but he's too late: it tips inward and makes a thunderous, gunshot-like slam against the dirty floor.

The noise could have been anything. A crack of lightning, a kid lighting off a firework, a gunshot in the drug-addled hellhole town to the East, but it isn't any of those things. The big bad wolves are here, knocking down her door. She can smell them, all gunpowder and motor oil and adrenaline breath.

She rolls her eyes as she listens to them bicker. Winchesters.

"I'm in here, meatheads." She calls from the cobwebbed room where she's curled up in the corner by the window. Her voice is low and sultry, a harsh contrast with the casual insult.

It only takes a minute or so before their heavy footfalls make it to the doorway. She stays where she is, curled tight against the wall, gazing at them from behind a curtain of mussed black hair. They startle a little when they catch sight of her.

Muscles tense and ripple beneath her skin and she rises to her feet with an unearthly speed and grace, but she doesn't approach.

"Dean." She pushes enough hair out of her eyes that they can see her face in the moonlight, tan-skinned and coated with blood and dirt. "Sam."

"Who the hell are you?" Dean takes a step forward, brandishing his weapon.

"Now, now." She raises her hands, retracts her claws, and makes herself look as harmless as she can manage under the circumstances. "Is that any way to treat a friend?"

"We don't make friends with monsters." Dean asserts.

"That's a good joke, kid." A slow grin spreads across her face, the corners of her mouth stretching a little further than perhaps they ought, and then a little further still. Her head tilts slowly, and her searching eyes glint yellow.

She seems entranced, and Dean takes the opportunity to rush in with the knife, but she's out of the way well before he reaches her, leaving him stumbling into the corner of the room.

"Don't worry." She says. "You'll get to kill me. In fact, I won't even put up a struggle. You know how this goes."

The blank looks on Sam and Dean's faces make her frown.

"Not much for pattern recognition, are we? Where's your little angel? I'd very much like to speak with him before we do our dance."

"What?" Sam frowns, his heart beating double-time, so loud he's sure she can hear it.

"There's no such thing as angels, Sam." Dean growls without taking his eyes off her. "I don't know what her game is, but she's just messing with you. Don't listen to it. These things pull tricks all the time."

Her thick, caterpillar eyebrows furrow for a moment. She looks Sam up and down, and after a couple of quick passes, her gaze settles on his head – no, his hair. His much shorter hair.

Recognition and understanding spill suddenly over her features, visible even through the layer of dust and filth. She tilts back her head and lets out a loud, barking laugh.

"I'm so sorry." She claps her hands together in front her. "My mistake. It seems that we haven't… well, that is you haven't met me yet. Sam, your brother's been very rude - we go way back, he ought to introduce you to me, but since he wont..." She approaches them gingerly and extends a hand, as if to shake. "I'm Maledictus."

"You want us to shake your hand?" Sam asks, somewhat thrown. "Dean, what is she talking about?"

"That is the custom, is it not?" She smiles.

"She's just lying, Sammy." Dean says through his teeth.

There's something a little off about it, it stands out from the rest of what he'd been saying in a way that Sam can't put his finger on, but he doesn't push. It's probably just the cold, the stress, he's almost certain he's reading too much into it.

"What year is it?" Asks the creature.

"It's 2006." Sam says softly. "For another couple of hours."

She looks down, like she's calculating. "No angel yet. Pity. He's a better conversationalist than either of you two louts."

"Sounds like more tricks to me." Dean says. He wraps his hand around hers, pulls her in and drives the blade between her ribs.

She stares into Dean's eyes, never taking her gaze off them as she speaks. "Listen. Ypsilanti. Pittsburgh. Broward. Monument. Milan. Erie. Couer d'Alene. New Harmony. Hell."

The walls vibrate. Sam eyes them warily.

"Towns." He says. "She's naming places."

The wood in the floor begins to warp. Dean swallows hard and twists the knife in her chest.

"Dean Winchester." She coughs dark blood, and Dean thinks he's addressing her, but she goes on: "Bela Talbot. Dean Winchester. Alastair. Uriel. Adam Milligan. Lilith. Ruby. Castiel."

"She said you." Sam points out. "Twice?"

"Yeah? And?" Dean pulls out the knife and stabs her again. Wood-splinters rain from the vaulted ceiling.

"Jo Harvelle." Her eyes go out of focus, but she keeps talking in a husky rattle. "Ellen Harvelle. Sam Winchester. Anael. Sam Winchester. Dean Winchester. Zacharaiah."

"Do you think we should get out of here?" Sam asks, eyeing the roof of the building that seems to be sinking somehow, getting closer and closer as if someone were holding up a giant zoom lens just beneath it.

There is an unholy creak as the walls start to curve inward at their centers.

"Gabriel. Castiel. Bobby Singer. Balth—"

A piece of the house falls directly onto her head with a wet crunch. Sam's hand closes around Dean's wrist and they just barely slip out through the door before the entire thing collapses in on itself. They turn around and watch as the entire house turns, piece by piece, to dust that blows away in the freezing winter wind.

"Holy shit." Dean says. He looks down at the knife, and the blood itself dries to dust and blows away.

"Should we, uh…" Sam offers, gesturing toward the car.

"Yeah."

They drive until they are exhausted, and when they are exhausted, they drink until they can't help but sleep. In the morning, Dean finds Sam already awake, completely absorbed in the glow of his computer.

"I don't think that was a Kumiko." He says, voice flat and tired, as if he'd just gotten bad news he doesn't know how to process.

Sam meets Dean's groggy gaze, sees the microscopic shake of his head, and in the silence there is something of an accord, a sense as deep as hunger or lust that they simply are not going to speak of it. Not to Bobby, not to anybody, not even to one another.

But when Dean is shot in Broward, that rasping, choking voice will echo loud and clear in Sam's head. He'll wish they'd killed her sooner, left the house quicker, or maybe steered clear of Poughkeepsie altogether.

And it won't be the last time.