Doctor Behrooz Abacad left the operating room and walked down the hall. She deposited the extracted specimen in the freezer in the locked room and activated the elaborate security measures behind her. There were no other appointments that day, so the surgeon decided to double-check the day's paperwork, just to be on the safe side. The Transanimation Wellness Clinic keeps rigorous and scrupulously thorough records.
In her office, the doctor found a stubbly man in a black suit waiting for her behind her desk, taking a good look at the framed credentials on the wall. "Forgive me for barging in like this," he began in his gravelly London brogue, "but I had a devil of a time finding you in the phone book."
"I didn't see you in my appointment calendar. What's your name, sir?"
"Crowley. I have an interest in liaising with your clinic regarding your medical waste disposal program."
Doctor Abacad walked brusquely over to Crowley and sat in her desk chair. "Unless you work for our sharps recycling program, it looks like you wasted your trip."
"Miss Abacad," began Crowley as he took a seat in her guest chair, "I think you know what I'm talking about. I have come to believe that you're sitting on a trove of material of considerable value. I'd like to take it off your hands. For a handsome profit, of course."
"Anything that isn't processed by our current contractor is put into storage, so unfortunately I can't help you. Was there a particular specimen you wanted to acquire?"
"Is there anyone of interest up for grabs?"
"No. Not to you or anyone else. There are no circumstances under which any specimen is for sale. Sorry to have wasted your time, Mister Crowley." Doctor Abacad got up. Crowley didn't move.
"You don't know what I've got to offer. I could make a trade that would be very much worth your while."
"How did you come to know the nature of this clinic's medical waste," asked the doctor, "and why do you want it? Surely you know that all the animi were relinquished by their hosts. The specimens are worthless."
"Maybe to you. Not to me. Sounds like you won't miss them."
"Even if I were willing to empty the storage unit, doing so would void the parameters of my patients' various contracts. No one wants to be in breach of contract. You understand."
"Let me get this straight then," replied Crowley. "Despite the turpitude of the specimens or the death of their hosts, you're going to continue to hoard your human souls. What if I told you that they should legally be considered my property?"
"How do you figure?"
"I'm the king of the underworld." At this, the doctor raised an eyebrow. "Corrupted souls fall entirely under my purview."
"This is," countered the doctor "unless they're alive and barring any other claims or arrangements. Would you like to take a look at my patients' contracts?"
"I'd love to. I'm sure my claims supersede yours, but it's always amusing to see someone try to challenge Hell's legal department."
"This is Hell's legal department, Mister Crowley. There is no afterlife – in any mythology – that takes precedence over the contracts drawn up on Transanimation's behalf. My storage unit is as much afterlife any of my patients will ever get. So once again, I can't be of service to you. You are going to leave here empty-handed, I'm afraid."
"You will be, soon enough."
"Pardon me?"
"Afraid, that is."
"Goodbye Mister Crowley." Doctor Abacad put on the glasses around her neck. "You're excused." She glanced at Crowley and stiffened, startled. The demon king left.
"What's so sinister about a plastic surgery clinic?" asked Dean Winchester as he and his brother drove to Portland. "Besides the obvious, of course."
"The clinic itself? Probably nothing," replied Sam. "but a lot of the clients have left with distinctly different personalities. A lot of them are high-powered executives."
"So executives are evil. This is hardly news. What makes you think this is our kind of thing? Is there something demonic or Leviathanny about it?"
"I get the impression that the executives weren't actually evil when they went into the clinic. Just look at Bellamy Finch. He went from being a regional manager to a complete environmental rapist-"
"To a rampaging metal monster. I remember hearing about that on the news."
"And it all started with a little visit to Doctor Abacad."
"Alright Sammy, we'll check him out. I hope we don't have to gank some sense into the guy."
Sam held up his fake CDC badge declaring him to be John Paul Jones. "Good afternoon. I'm special agent Blashington, this is special agent Jefferspin. We're conducting an investigation into a viral outbreak that we believe began at or near this clinic. May we please speak to whoever's in charge of surgery?"
"That would be the owner of this clinic, but I don't believe that Doctor Abacad is going to be available until…" Vandaveon the receptionist made little laser gun sounds to himself as he looked through the online calendar. "tomorrow for twenty minutes at noonish. Shall I slot you in?"
"Seriously?" barked Dean. "We can't have five minutes?"
"We've recently stepped up security here so no, not just anyone can just walk in. If you want to wait around until the doctor gets back from legal, you can. If Abacad gets back early, you might be able to get a little bit of time."
"Fine. Can you mention that this is a matter of national security?" The elder brother planted himself in one of reception's stuffed chairs.
"I thought you guys said you were CDC," said Van, peering over his specs.
"We are," Sam said quickly. "What happened that made you tighten security?"
"Some guy broke in. Made threats. Really freaked out the boss."
Sam nodded and looked around. He noticed an intricate swirling pattern on the reddish counter. Upon closer inspection, the counter was white with miniature devil's traps all over it. "New counter?"
"Yep," replied Van as he looked at the computer monitor, passing his glasses in front of and over his eyes.
"Did you get a look at the guy who broke in?"
"Short white guy, black suit, in need of a shave. Sounded like Jason Statham."
"How long do people usually spend in the legal department?"
"Couldn't tell ya. Sometimes all day. I'd get comfy if I were you."
Sam walked over to Dean and sat beside him. " 'Agent Blashington'?" asked Dean under his breath.
"I wanted to try something new," replied Sam. "Crowley's been poking around."
Just then a tall Iranian woman with short hair in a lab coat strode through the door. "Oh! Doctor Abacad," said Vandaveon as Dean turned his head. "These two gentlemen would like a word with you. They claim to be from the Centre for Disease Control." The receptionist gave Doctor Abacad a knowing look and tapped his glasses. The doctor noticed the signal and frowned.
"Come with me, you two."
The doctor walked purposefully into her office, while watching carefully as the brothers followed her. She stopped them before they entered her office and waved them over the threshold only after she had gotten to the middle of the room. There were two light red rings inlaid into the floor around the door that Sam and Dean walked across with ease. The doctor relaxed a bit.
Dean started to hold out his badge and the doctor rolled her eyes. Sam interjected. "Looks like you've been having demon problems."
"Do you work for Mister Crowley?" asked the doctor bluntly.
"No," replied Sam.
"We hate the son of a bitch," added Dean under his breath.
"Are you here because you're looking for him?"
"No, but we do want to know what he wanted at your clinic," said Dean.
Sam continued. "What sort of work do you do here, Doctor Abacad?"
"We provide a number of therapeutic procedures, all of which are listed on our website." The doctor paused. "The Englishman is not human; he's a demon. He claimed to the king of perdition. Is he really the devil?'"
Dean nodded. "What did he want?" asked Sam.
"He wanted to buy the clinic's medical waste. We keep it in a vault for safe keeping."
"Eew. Why?" asked Dean.
"I don't know. I can't imagine a wholesome reason for wanting it, so I refused. I would have refused anyone else, for any price."
"What is it, exactly, that you keep in your vault?" asked Sam
The doctor furrowed her brow and looked from one brother to the other. "I think the demon was after the material extracted during routine animectomies. The souls."
"Your clinic extracts people's souls for money?" blurted Dean. "Lady, what the hell is wrong with you? And you think that Crowley is the untrustworthy one?"
"Listen 'agent'," began the doctor, adding air quotes to the word agent as she said it. "To the untrained eye, the practise of cutting a human brain in half would seem monstrous and grotesque. But severing the corpus callosum is a form of treatment for those with severe epilepsy. There are many reasons to perform an animectomy, all of them valid and profoundly personal. And when it's not an appropriate form of therapy, I'm the first to refuse. I decline more requests than I grant. It's my job to perform the procedure safely and responsibly and I take that job very seriously. And I don't have time enough to spare some to be insulted and lectured on medical ethics by two young men who conduct investigations under false pretences. Now, what is it you want with me?"
"We want to know which side you're on," replied Sam.
"What's your angle?" added Dean.
"You know my angle. What's yours?" Doctor Abacad picked up the glasses around her neck. "May I give you each a quick examination?"
Sam nodded before Dean could object and the doctor donned her "reading" glasses. She squinted at their torsos.
"Oh! You're brothers!" the doctor exclaimed. "Are you twins?"
"No. What makes you say that?" asked Dean as he bristled.
"Your souls fit together. Obviously you spend all your time together, and your affection for each other dominates your spirits. It's a trait of twins. And some spouses, I suppose."
Sam squirmed. "Do those glasses let you see into people's souls?"
"Heh heh, x-ray specs," mused Dean.
"Yes. They have a layer of enchantment that strips artifice and illusion. I recently had a simpler pair made for the receptionist to help screen visitors. Soul examinations are a very personally invasive procedure, so I always ask permission first." She stopped in front of Dean and glanced from his breastplate to his right elbow. "Do you have a weapon strapped to your arm? It's making your soul boil."
Dean rolled up his sleeve. "It's not a weapon; it's the Mark of Cain."
Doctor Abacad held his wrist and peered at the Mark. After some time, she said "It's very bad for you. You should get that removed." She let go of Dean's arm. "So you two appear to work as exterminators of some kind. Detectives, maybe? What is it you're trying to find out?"
"We're here to make sure your vault has not been compromised. If we know what's in it, that means other people do too." Sam motioned to the warding on her office floor. "These are all good precautions, but they'll only take you so far. It's only a matter of time before Crowley gets what he wants."
Dean bent down and looked at the strips of red patterning. "Why are your devil's traps so small?"
The doctor suddenly looked worried. "How big are they supposed to be?"
"We usually draw a big one in the middle of the floor."
"Oh, like a mouse trap," said the doctor with a smile. "The smaller ones behave more like flypaper. You have to disable multiple traps to liberate an evil spirit, since they get caught in place."
"Huh," said Dean. "Do you have this in the vault?"
"The vault is wallpapered in this pattern."
"May we see it?" asked Sam.
"Very well. I would very much appreciate your opinion of my security. But you, Mister Worchester," she added, pointing at Dean, "will not be allowed inside. The scar on your elbow is a weapon, despite what you think, and so are you. I'm not willing to take any chances. Please wait for your brother in reception."
The Winchesters nodded at each other and the doctor led Sam down a hallway of identical doors, all of which had a security panels beside them. The doctor stopped behind what seemed to Sam an arbitrary door and asked entered an 8-digit security code. She then asked him to plug his ears as she spoke the password to the voice-recognition program.
The door opened to reveal a large white room with a glass-doored freezer case along the rear wall. There were rings of warding on the ceiling and floor circling the fridge and the entrance door. Sam walked over to the specimens, which resided in glass jars marked with letters. They appeared as coloured snaky slugs of various shapes and textures, some much uglier than others. Some floated in clear fluid while others' jars were murky, almost obscuring the creature inside.
"Where are the souls?" asked Sam.
The doctor looked puzzled and pointed to the freezer case. "That's them in the jars."
"Really? I've seen disembodied souls before and they look nothing like these. The ones I've seen are little bright balls of white light."
The doctor smiled wide. "Ah. I think the ones you've seen before are much purer than the ones before you now. The people to whom these belong were somewhat corrupt to begin with, made all the worse by the desire to relinquish their soul and the doing so. The more their hosts behave badly, the worse the decay becomes. Look at that one," she said, pointing to Jar G, which appeared to be full of vomit. "We irrigate the tanks twice a day, but even that's not often enough for certain specimens."
"Why do people damage their souls?" asked Sam, looking at the jars on the lower shelves.
"They don't do it on purpose. Once their souls leave their bodies, they can't feel their conscience anymore."
"Ah," replied Sam. "I know what you mean. I've seen people who're missing theirs. Their behaviour is completely different."
"Exactly. It's like… have you ever seen a child who can't feel pain? They have to wear goggles to keep them from gouging out their eyes. They are simply unaware of the harm they're doing to themselves." She took a step back from the freezer. "So tell me: in your opinion, how secure is this room?"
"The locks are solid against humans, and the devil's traps are pretty clever, if not foolproof. Do you have any other kinds of warding in this room?"
"What do you think I should add?"
Dean made his way back to the lobby, rubbing the crook of his elbow. A door opened beside him and a heavy set man stumbled out, supported by a very tall muscular man.
"Easy does it, Mr. McIntyre," said a female voice from inside the room. Dean thought her dulcet Latin accent sounded familiar. She continued, "The anaesthetic should wear off in the next hour. Until then, why not take a lie-down in the recovery room?" Dean peered into the OR. "Freddy here shall show you the way," said Maritza the Pischtacco. It was then she spotted the hunter glowering at her and lunged.
"Wonderful, just wonderful," said Doctor Abacad, jotting down copious notes. "This is tremendously helpful. Thank you so much. May I compensate you for your advice?"
Sam was taken aback. "Wow. Sure. Thank you. But that's not necessary."
"Nonsense, I insist. You were at least as helpful as the man I contracted to install the warding I have. I'll write you a cheque at my desk. To whom-"
Doctor Abacad was interrupted by raised voices in the hallway.
"I have a good job! I'm helping people, just like you!" bleated Maritza.
"What I do and what you do are nothing alike," snarled Dean. "We cut you a break and the deal was you make yourself scarce."
"What's going on here?" asked the doctor sternly.
Before Maritza could answer, Dean whirled at Abacad. "You have a monster working here. Do you know what she is?"
"She is," boomed the doctor "a liposuction technician on my payroll. You will not harass or terrorize my staff. I will not tolerate any threats to this clinic's professional integrity."
Just then voices were heard behind a closed door behind Abacad. "It's the testicle festival!" said one, followed by "Eew dude, pick those up!"
"Freddy?" the doctor called to the enormous orderly. "Please escort these two gentlemen out of the building. I'm sorry Mister Worchester," she said to Sam, "contractors only receive payment if they can behave themselves."
"Damnit Dean, she was going to give us a consultation fee," scolded Sam as they drove back to the motel. "That would have made this our first paying gig since, what? Twenty-eleven?"
"It's not my fault that Peruvian fatsuckers can't stay in Peru. I freaking knew that place was crooked. We'd be better off getting Crowley in there to take those poor bastards off her hands."
"You don't mean that. She's keeping souls out of Hell."
"Oh, you think being in a freezer is better than being in Hell? And what if those souls deserve Hell? What kind of a lowlife would have theirs removed, anyway?"
It was Walter's turn to perform vault maintenance, and he was going to do his best to get it over and done with as quickly as he could. The irrigation of the specimen jars was a very unpopular task in the clinic, since despite the vents and containment, some of the more badly decaying specimens smelled downright foul.
Certain jars would go days, even weeks without needing to be flushed, while others needed constant attention. The irrigation nodes on the sides of the jars made the job easier, so Walter started with specimen G, intending to do them in order of murkiness.
He had just placed specimen G back in the fridge when Walter noticed movement in Jar M. He had intended to flush its tank next, since it was the second-most corrupt soul in the freezer. Walter reached for the jar and checked his watch: 6:22.
The jar was in his hand when the specimen writhed angrily. The bloated, mottled, spiny worm whipped back and forth as Walter moved its jar toward the irrigation hose. This had never happened before. Walter struggled to keep a grip on the jar as the weight in it rocked back and forth and he moved to attach the hose to the node in the jar. The worm suddenly took on a smoky black sheen and the jar pulled itself out of Walter's hand. Instead of falling, the jar of black smoke stopped in midair. Walter looked up at the red ring of warding.
The technician was puzzled. He tried to move the jar, but it was stuck suspended, as if glued to the spot at chest level. Walter didn't know what to do, so he shrugged, left specimen M where it dangled and set about flushing all the other jars. Jar M remained caught in the devil's traps the whole time.
When he was done, Walter looked at his second ward, which still floated inert. He took hold of it and wrenched it back and forth, but it didn't budge. He walked over to the desk phone and called reception, asking someone to weigh in on his strange conundrum. Maritza was the first to respond and promised to be there within five minutes. Walter thanked her and walked back to the floating specimen jar.
He rubbed his neck and pondered the tank in the air. He placed his palms in it and leaned against it with all his weight. It was like a pole. He grabbed the jar by the lid and the base and pulled. Nothing. He twisted the jar, his hands one against the other and the lid suddenly screwed loose. The ethereal black fluid smoke streamed out of the jar and right into Walter's nose and mouth. The technician opened black eyes and grimaced.
"You know, you wouldn't take half so long in the shower if you got a haircut," said Dean as his brother walked through the room, one towel wrapped around his waist and another in his hand, ruffling his hair. "We wouldn't go through towels as quickly either." Dean's cell phone rang. "Agent Jefferspin," he grunted. Sam gave him a look of amusement.
"Mister Worchester?" asked the shaking voice of Doctor Abacad. "May I ask a favour of you?"
"Is this the soul stealing quack that kicked us out of the building?"
Sam walked over and put Dean's phone on speaker. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"There is a problem in my vault that I think requires your expertise. Would you please come help us? I didn't know who else to call."
Dean looked at Sam who answered, "We'll be right over."
Dean and Sam strode through the clinic's doors, to be met by the doctor, who was sitting in Vandaveon's chair in reception.
"Thank you so much for coming," she said breathlessly, her accent sounding more pronounced than usual.
Dean stalked straight past the reception desk and down the hall to the vault. Sam waited for the doctor to join them. "What happened in the vault?"
"One of the specimens got loose and tripped security."
"Is that a problem?"
"The specimen… took a hostage. I have a technician stuck in the devil's traps."
The two had caught up to Dean. "Open the vault," he commanded, holding his handgun.
Doctor Abacad stepped in front of him. "I still don't want you in there. It's simply not safe."
"Why?" asked Dean indignantly. "This is ridiculous."
"I don't usually allow any visitor in the vault," she said motioning to Sam, "much less an instrument of cosmic wrath such as yourself," with a wave at Dean. "Please wait here. If there are any major problems, only then you may step in." She turned back to Sam. "Will you help me to put the specimen back into its tank?"
"That's really not what we do," answered Dean. Doctor Abacad sighed.
"Will you do that today? Please?"
Dean frowned, shrugged and stepped aside. Doctor Abacad entered her code and forgot to ask the Winchesters not to listen as she sang "Rah-rah rumma-maw" into the vocal password input module. Dean watched the hall as she and Sam entered the vault.
There they beheld Walter, sporting black eyes and snarling as his one free hand grasped and clenched in the air. The rest of his body was motionless, as if he were playing a game of freeze tag.
"Demon flypaper," said Sam to himself as he walked over and took in the scene. He picked up the jar on the floor marked M. "Okay, I'll try to force the thing out of your guy's body and catch it in the jar when it emerges." Sam looked at the jar then back at the technician, who was swearing and threatening him in Turkish. "Whose soul is this, anyway?"
"Jar M," said Abacad to herself, wracking her brain to remember. "I believe it was the animus of Stanis Vitrioli. He's a military contractor stationed in Crimea. If memory serves, he was recently promoted to general."
"Really? A demon Russian army commander?" barked Dean from the doorway. "Kill it, Sammy. Gank it right now! We can't have a guy like that running around."
"We can't, he's a living man," replied Sam.
"Please put him back in the tank," implored Abacad. "I have a responsibility."
Sam began reciting in Latin and held the open jar in front of Walter's face. The demon writhed and howled, but was unable to thrash around. As soon as Sam said the word "adinos", the black smoke spewed out of Walter's mouth and slammed into the bottom of the waiting jar. Sam clapped the lid on and Doctor Abacad caught Walter's body as he went limp and fell to the floor. Upon being filled with demon, the jar once again froze and stuck in midair.
"I can't believe that worked," said Dean from the doorway.
"Yeah, we've never bothered trying to trap disembodied demons before," added Sam. He looked at the floating object. "What are you going to do with the jar?"
"It goes back into the fridge," answered the doctor. Sam cocked his head and Abacad continued. "I am responsible for the safe storage of all these specimens, if not their intrinsic integrity. I have to safeguard Mister Vitrioli's soul just as I would any other."
"But it's not like any other," objected Dean, who had still faithfully stayed out of the vault. "It's not even a soul anymore. If it's a demon, you have to destroy it, end of story. Or send it to Hell."
Walter started coughing. "Please don't make me flush the jars again."
"Good heavens! I'm glad you're alright," said the doctor. "Why did you open the specimen jar?"
"It was an accident. I didn't even think anything would happen. What the hell did that guy do to his soul?"
"Whatever it was, must have happened in the last 8 hours," said Sam.
"At 6:20" added Walter.
"I really appreciate your help," said the doctor. "Please meet me at the front desk. I wish to give you something."
Doctor Abacad wrote them a cumulative "consultation" cheque for Sam's vault advice and exorcism, and sent them with a length of Devil's Flypaper as well. As she was asking them to spell their last name, she realized her mispronunciation and apologized.
The two brothers were just leaving when Doctor Abacad impulsively stopped Dean with a gentle tug of his right elbow. "I'm sorry for being so short with you earlier. If you'll forgive my saying so, this scar on your arm is a very bad problem for you. I saw the damage it's doing to your spirit. It's toxic, especially to you."
"Cain gave it to me because he thought I was worthy."
"I'm sure you are, Mister Win-chesser, but your soul has been shredded and glued back together… more than once I think. Now, do you remember whom slew Cain when first he got this Mark?" Dean looked puzzled, then realized what she meant. "The blood your scar demands belongs to your older brother," she added.
Dean didn't know what to say. "Sam is younger than me by four years."
"You need to be rid of this Mark." Doctor Abacad handed him her card. "Perhaps that can be arranged. If anyone could remove it, it would be me. I hope to hear from you."
Three days later, Doctor Abacad came in to work and noticed that an appointment with lead lawyer Tanya Ahlquist had appeared on her calendar for that morning. The doctor could not remember having made such an appointment, but proceeded to her office to return the call. When she arrived, the smartly dressed young lawyer was already waiting for her.
"Good morning Tanya," said the doctor with a smile. "You were terrific in court on Wednesday, as always. What can I do for you this-" The doctor's smile disappeared when she spotted the Englishman in black seated behind Ms. Ahlquist.
"Doctor Abacad, I believe you've already met my client Crowley," she began. "You have a specimen in the vault that he's come to collect."
"We've been through this, Crowley," replied the doctor with no little irritation. "You have no legal claim to any of this clinic's medical waste, nor any other its other property."
"On the contrary," said the lawyer and the demon in unison. They looked at each other and Crowley smiled. "You go ahead, love," he said to Tanya. "Your wonderful legalese makes my trousers tight."
"We have reason to believe," continued Tanya, "that Stanis Vitrioli, on the evening of the 22nd, shortly after 6pm, underwent a transformation that negated the current parameters of his animus storage contract with this clinic."
"Essentially," interjected Crowley, "demons are not legally 'souls' anymore. That little arson of an elementary school near the Black Sea nudged old Stan into my arena. So," he said, getting deliberately to his feet "what with habeas corpus and nine-tenths of the law and all that," he paused, "hand him over."
Doctor Abacad looked alarmedly to Ahlquist, who nodded placidly. "He's right. You have to."
The doctor struggled to control her voice. "Do you have a court order?"
"Not at the moment, but we could get one."
"Easily, and at great expense to you," added Crowley. "We could bankrupt this clinic with legal fees. And then, how would you come up with the cash to keep the lights on?" He walked over to Abacad and looked right in her face. "What would you have to pawn, I wonder?"
The doctor took a step back and looked at the young lawyer. The two women had a professional history together, involving the soul extraction of Bellamy Finch. Doctor Abacad knew the lawyer to be trustworthy, knowledgeable and scrupulous (though increasingly less so in recent months). Ahlquist had worked with Transanimation on a number of occasions and the doctor trusted her legal expertise implicitly. She looked to her now.
Tanya shrugged and nodded apologetically.
Doctor Abacad went and retrieved the jar of oily black smoked marked M and with great reluctance and objection, gave it to the king of Hell.
"Pleasure doing business with you," said Crowley with a smug, serene smile. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again. In the meantime, you keep doing what you're doing. Behrooz, my dear, you're really going places."