THE EXORCIST

Something slithered over Dean's hip, across his stomach, and over his right arm. Almost ticklish at first, it became heavy, abrasive where it made contact with his skin and he shivered at the unpleasant touch. Alarms going off in his head like church's bells, Dean woke with a start and focused sluggish eyes on the thing moving over his body.

Scales.

That was all that registered over his building panic. Black scales that glinted as light bounced off the slick surface, gleaming as they shifted, sinuously sliding across the marble floor.

Dean yelped, jerking back before he remembered his limited range of mobility; the too short chain cut deeper into his wrists and curbed his escape to mere inches. "Fuck!" he shouted, caught between the pain and alarm. "What the hell is that thing?"

"'The seventy-two returned rejoicing, and said, "Lord,even the demons are subject to us because of your name."

Which... told him nothing other than how colossally screwed in the head the man in diapers was.

Dean didn't have anything against snakes, not specifically anyway. But there was something about an eight foot long black snake, probably poisonous, roaming free around his body that made Dean's stomach churn and his skin crawl.

"I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.' "

Dean listened with half a mind to what the nut bag was saying. Serpents and scorpions.

God... he hoped there weren't any scorpions around. Those things were like spiders on steroids, with frigging swords strapped to their backs. And Dean really, really hated buff spiders with swords.

His eyes were focused on the snake's movement, lost on what he could do if the slithering animal decided to use him as a climbing toy again.

The second snake caught Dean completely unaware. It moved at him from the side and just as he caught sight of it from the corner of his eye, Dean moved too fast, raising his arms in defense.

The snake took it as an attack. It coiled back, engorged neck making it look like it had swallowed a tennis ball. Its tail, dragging through the floor, swished back and forth, like an over-energetic puppy.

It struck forward faster than Dean could move out of the way. Fangs pierced through his left forearm, in and out before the pain even registered.

It was like being stabbed by a dagger with fire for a blade.

There was nothing Dean could use as a shield, nowhere he could run. Each movement he made in an attempt to stop the snake, the animal took it as offensive rather than defensive and responded by charging faster.

Dean whimpered, curling on himself. He was too weak and tired to match the snake's speed. Even if he hadn't been starved for God knew how many days, and his body wasn't as black and blue as it currently was, Dean knew he would've never been a match for the snake's speed.

The other one, the happy-tree-climber, came back, attracted by the sounds its angrier cohort was making. The pissed off one was rearing to attack again, Dean could hear it hissing. When its fangs sunk into Dean's skin one more time, its pal decided to join the fun. All Dean could do was cover his face and hope the snakes were poisonous enough to kill him fast.

Through his continued – and utterly failed - attempts to dodge and duck out of the path of his fanged attackers, Dean was aware of only two things outside his bubble of pain. First, anorexic sumo wrestler guy hadn't once stopped his droning, repetitive chant, and second, while the man was fucking just standing there, the snakes had made no move to attack the older man. Not even once.

"I hate to be the one pointing this out," Bobby started, waiting for Sam's attention to drift away from the road and to him. "But how do you suppose we find a killer that the Chicago PD has been after for over two months and failed to find?"

Sam's hands curled around the steering wheel of an old Pontiac that Bobby had driven down from his salvage yard. "You heard Cass," he started. The angel, torn apart from Heaven and too weak to be able to transport both hunters and all of their weapons all the way to Chicago, had gone off to keep an eye on Lucifer while they drove there. "He needs only a name to find this killer wherever he's hiding."

"Oh... it's just a matter of finding his name," Bobby said, a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "And how do you suppose we find that? Ask nicely?"

Sam nodded, missing the snark on the older man's voice. "We're not the police, Bobby... we have ways of finding these things that they would never think to use. We need to find this guy before he kills Dean."

"I get that, Sam, I really do but how do you—" All snark left Bobby's face. "You want to do a séance," he simply said, knowing exactly what was on Sam's mind. "You wanna pluck one of his victims from its eternal rest to give you the name of the killer?"

Sam looked ahead, aware of the veiled accusation in Bobby's words. "This monster killed them... tortured them before murdering them," Sam said, his voice breaking as he tried his best to not picture his brother in the same situation. "I'm sure one of them will be more than happy to help us."

"Fine... let's say I don't think that's completely messed up and the very opposite of what we're supposed to do," Bobby pointed out gruffly. "First, though, we try it the old fashion way."

Despite his exhaustion, Dean couldn't sleep. After the snakes had grown tired, or had plainly realized that he wasn't attacking them back, they'd lost interest and had slithered their way out.

A few minutes after that, Dean had heard diaper-man walk around for a bit before the sound of a plastic bowl touching the marble floor reached his ears. Water, it seemed, was Dean's reward for entertaining the bastard with his screams and blood.

Then he was alone again. Alone to wonder and wait for the numbness to hit, for his airways to slam shut, for whatever crap the snake's poison does to people who are bitten. Other than the pain from the bites themselves, however, nothing else was happening.

He forced himself to inspect the damage. His arms, without the protection of clothes, had taken the brunt of the attack. Some of the puncture wounds were already growing red and swollen; others had been torn, skin ripped right off where the snakes fangs had gotten stuck.

Dean looked lethargically at the bowl of water. It was only inches away but it felt like an impossible distance to cover. His tongue felt twice its size and Dean could swear that his teeth had a coat of fur over them. He needed that water.

Inch by inch, he moved forward, until he was close enough to lift the bowl to his cracked lips. The metallic tang of the liquid spoke of old pipes; or maybe there was something else mixed in the water. There was no point in trying to guess. Either way, it wasn't like Dean could afford to waste whatever precious gulps of water he was given on thoughts of tainted water.

His thoughts, however, turned into another direction. The most frustrating of directions. The why? direction.

Why was this guy doing this to him? Why him? Didn't Dean have enough crap on his plate already that he needed this too?

Like the water, there really wasn't much to be gained in finding answers to those questions. If the guy wanted something from Dean, he was taking his sweet time demanding it, not to mention the whole show he put up every time he visited; if he was doing all of this just for kicks, then his reasons escaped reason itself and Dean was no shrink to be mind-scoping the guy.

Detachedly, Dean remembered some of the words the weird man had been reciting as the snakes bit into him; thinking about it, Dean was sure he'd done the same thing earlier, when he'd used that rod to tattoo Dean a new skin color.

For someone who had never paid much attention to such book, in the last two years Dean had seen himself forced to read the Bible from cover to cover. Several times.

First, it had been Lilith and the damn seals to break Lucifer free, and then it had been Lucifer himself, with his by-the-book apocalypse. For one who had never paid much attention to Pastor Jim's sermons, Dean figured that, between he, Sam and Bobby, they already knew the thing by heart from creation to the end of times.

Mr. Fucked-up brains had been reading passages from the Bible, Dean was pretty sure of that. Something about conquering demons?

Something metallic echoed against the cement floor, disrupting his thoughts. Startled, Dean turned.

Too fast.

The room spun around him and the floor rushed to meet his face. Dean struggled to zero in on the sound that had caught his attention as gravity twisted and turned.

The cold of marble pressing against his cheek, Dean blinked his eyes, trying to chase away the black spots in his vision. Moving slower this time around, he managed to turn just enough to find the source of the noise.

Dean was tired of that psycho sneaking up on him and there was no telling what other surprises he might have in stored for him. The room, however, was still as empty as before. Nothing there but Dean and the birds that seemed to permanently live in that place.

The can that had rolled away had once been filled with beans. It was too far away for Dean to read the brand, but the shape and color was unmistakable. He knew it was impossible because the can had probably been there for years, but Dean could swear he was still able to smell the baked beans inside, hot and bubbling in their bland sauce, delicious.

Mouth watering, Dean's stomach rumbled anew; the empty twist in his gut was almost too painful to bear and he moaned with hunger The bastard knew that without water, Dean would die too fast for him to have his fun. Food, on the other hand, was a whole different matter.

The can moved again, and this time Dean knew it hadn't been his delirious imagination. There was something pushing it around.

So far, Dean hadn't seen any rats around. He figured the crows took care of those. Cockroaches, on the other hand...

When the can moved into the poor light coming through the window, Dean realized that, although also black, it was no cockroach moving the empty can around. No rat either, although Dean almost wished it'd been one.

Crazy guy was gone, but he'd left his pets behind. Or at least one of them.

The snake soon lost its interest in the can. If it was looking for food, Dean figured it was having as much luck as he was.

He didn't dare moving as the huge black snake slid across the ground, graceful and powerful, making its way near the altar. Maybe it was the smell of blood on Dean's wounds, maybe it was the coldness of the marble; Dean had no way of knowing.

He just knew that he wasn't getting bit again.

Summoning all the strength he had and borrowing some out of thin air, Dean leaped forward as soon as the snake was in his reach. Using the only weapon he had at hand, Dean grabbed the snake by its thick neck and coiled the chain around it before pulling as hard as he could.

The image of princess Leia in that tiny bikini, squeezing the snot out of Jabba, the Hut came to Dean's mind unbidden and he laughed out loud, thinking that, at least, his boxers covered more than her outfit.

The crack and snap sound of the animal's neck breaking put an end to Dean's unhinged laughter. He dropped the snake's suddenly flaccid body and stared numbly at its unmoving corpse; the thing had only done what came naturally but he couldn't help the irrational surge of joy at having ended its life.

He thought of shoving it away; get that animal as far away from his sight as he could. Instead, Dean found himself reaching for it again, bloody fingernails picking at the soft scales of the snake, pulling, tearing, edging his way through until he found soft meat underneath.

Four days without food. That was all that crossed Dean's mind as he raised the dead snake to his mouth and took a bite.

They drove to Chicago in record time. After all, enough time had already been wasted in Minneapolis.

Taking turns driving to avoid any unnecessary stops, not once did Sam or Bobby dared touch the subject of the possibility of them being on a wild goose chase. Even thought the thought was never far from their minds, never once either of them voiced their fears of Dean being already dead or worse, already in Michael's hands.

For this, at least, they had to go on faith.

Castiel looked bored when they met with him. "This means of transportation is not suitable for the urgency of our mission."

Sam couldn't agree more, even if he didn't give the angel anything more than a nod. "Find anything?"

Castiel's looked up, his eyes reflecting the color of the cloudy sky as if they were the same. "There are many souls in this city. I visited a few of the more... devout men and women, but none were in possession of any information that might aid us."

"Well, it was worth a shot," Bobby said, opening his duffel bag to take out a wrinkled dark, blue suit and measuring it up to Castiel's body. "Time to pay the cops a visit."

The snake had tasted as vile going down as it had coming back up. And all the traffic up and down had done nothing but make Dean's throat feel like scrapped paper and his mouth taste of blood. A complete loss, all in all.

Dean had no quells about drinking all the water that Mr. Loose Screws had left behind this time around. In hindsight, a few drops would've helped to wash away the taste of vomit and blood he was now stuck with.

The snake's carcass stared at Dean with dead eyes, twitching in its spot as the crows finished the meal he couldn't keep down.

Miserable, hungry, cold and hurting, Dean curled up on the dirty marble floor, hoping that sleep came fast enough to take him away from the aches and pains.

He needed to get out of that place. It irked Dean to no end that he could Houdini his way out of almost any situation and yet, there he was, stuck to the ground, held 'only' by a length of chain and a pair of cuffs.

There were no pieces of wire lying loose in the vicinity of his reduced reach; there were no nails on the floorboard that he could pry loose. And yet, all Dean had to do was look around the empty church and he could spot at least five different things he could use to open those cuffs.

It was like dying of thirst in the middle of a pool of fresh water.

Dean had tried breaking off a piece of the plastic water bowl, something small enough that he could fit into the chains' lock and work the damn thing open. The plastic however, refused to cooperate, seemingly more inclined to rip open the skin off his fingers rather than help him escape.

In pure desperation, Dean had even tried one of the snake's fangs. Though sharp as small knives before, when they had pierced him mercilessly, now that there was no life behind them, the fangs were nothing but soft, rotting pieces of worthlessness.

It was no use. Dean was stuck there until there was some divine intervention to get him out or crazy guy made the mistake of getting too close.

As he tried to find a comfortable position in his spot on the floor, his eyes found the stained glass windows.

He knew every each and every one of them by heart now, having spent hours and hours stuck in that place with nothing more to do but stare at his surroundings and think.

There were small imperfections in the etched glass; little things that might go amiss in a glancing look, but stood out when studied close. A nose too big over here, a sheep whose muzzle looked more like a dog's there, a foot bent at such an angle that it seemed impossible to not be broken, a river that ended abruptly into a tree. Beautiful at first sight and yet so flawed.

It was like every window presented the defected results of some artist, trying his hand at drawing for the first time, faulty work that no one would see fit to expose anywhere. Except in that abandoned church.

After four days stuck in there, Dean was beginning to wonder if those windows weren't trying to tell him something.

When sleep did claim him, Dean found little rest; the figures in the windows were… unsettling, and they haunted his dreams despite his best efforts. Michael was there too, still wearing his father's face, only it wasn't young John as before, it was his father as Dean remembered him. Older, bigger, grimmer and looking disapprovingly at him.

Michael shrinking from view as Dean watched, like he was standing on quick sand. He sunk lower and lower, without moving a muscle to free himself.

Dean struggled to reach him, to help that being wearing his father's face but he couldn't move his feet. Looking down in bafflement, Dean could see nothing but stone where his boots should've been. Marble feet, like a statue.

Dean fought the unforgiving pull of the hard stone, pushing his body to the point of almost breaking his legs, but there was no give.

And still Michael sunk, slowly disappearing from view until there was nothing left of him.

"NO!" Dean jerked up with a start, the loss and utter despair that laced his nightmare still lingering as his eyes adapted to the gloomy light. He looked down, half expecting to find marble feet, but his feet were still made of flesh. White washed from the cold and with about as much feeling as the marble stone, but still flesh.

Michael was gone, but the mad man was back. "I see you have no problems eating your own kind," he said. It was the most words he'd actually spoken to Dean that hadn't come from the book.

Dean glared at him. The man still wore nothing but a linen cloth around his groin and Dean found himself wondering if it was always the same or if he changed it once in awhile, like a pair of skivvies. The poor light coming off the windows reflected off his shaved head, giving him a fake halo. Dean had no idea if it was still the middle of the night or the middle of a really depressing day.

In one of the man's hands there was the same worn black book that he always carried around and in the other something metallic that made a faint noise each time he moved. Dean was starting to dread that black book.

"Came to read me another story?" Dean offered back. He needed to find out what made Man-in-Diapers tic, get him to make some mistake, find his way to freedom. Dean struggled to his knees, not wanting to face what was coming next lying on the floor like some victim. "I have a soft spot for the ones where the bad guy ends up dead and the hero gets the girl," he offered with a smirk designed to piss off various captors.

This one in particular, though, didn't seem affected by Dean's words in the very least.

"Do not worry... the 'bad guy' will be vanquished because evil cannot be allowed to linger... and as for women," he said the word as if he was tasting something vile and particularly unsavory, "they are the instrument of the devil, pretty decoys to lead righteous men in the paths of sin and perdition... this hero has no need for such fleshy rewards."

Dean had to blink. Sure, in his mind, he had come up with all kinds of variations of 'loony' for the guy holding him prisoner. But hearing him speak now, like some deranged monk straight from the thirteenth-century... Dean was sure the man was the real deal, unhinged-wise. Something was very, very broken in that man's head.

"Okay," Dean started slowly, completely at loss as how to deal with a truly sick mind. "No women for you, I totally get that... but what do you say we lose the whole bondage show and I get out of your hair? So to speak."

The man's chatty mood, however, seemed to have passed. As he came closer, Dean managed to get a better look at what he was holding. A cold chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature raced down Dean's spine as he realized what it was.

It was a chain with teeth. It was the only way to put it. Like barbed wire, only thicker and stronger, with leather straps on each end of the metal contraption.

A few years back, when Sam was in Stanford, Dean and his father had worked a job in New York. A string of deaths connected to a building belonging to the Opus Dei organization, deaths under circumstances that had left the police confused and the Catholic Church less than inclined to allow strangers in to the place.

After realizing that the deaths were due to some cursed object as John had initially thought, but were being committed by a former member, deranged and obsessed with the old ways and who had killed himself in that same building, John had gone to find the bones and burn them while Dean stayed behind to make sure that the ghost didn't get a chance to kill anyone else.

The ghost, more invested in killing all members with too modern views than he was in protecting his own remains, had come after Dean rather than John. Before he vanished in a burst of smoke and flames, Dean had gotten a good look at him. Close enough to get his teeth on edge.

Butt naked, with his body covered in angry welts and bloodshot, crazy eyes, the ghost had a weird contraption strapped to his upper thigh, thin droplets of blood dripping from it even though he'd been long dead. A cilice, Dean had found out later, a corporal punishment instrument that had been the core of many discussions the ghost had had with other members when he was still alive.

A contraption just like the one crazy-man was holding in his hand right now.

Dean fought the insane urge to cover his thighs and stop the man from strapping that on him. He, however, had other intentions for the cilice.

The first strike hit Dean right across his shoulder blades, ripping shirt and skin in the same blow.

"FUCK!" Dean let out, tears springing unbidden to his eyes. It felt just like the snakebite, if the snake had a mouth full of teeth instead of just two.

"I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every Satanic power of the enemy, every specter from hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," the mad man started reading from his book, pausing only to land another punishing blow.

With little to no room to escape, all Dean could do was curl on himself and use his arms once again to protect his head as the whipping kept on coming. After a while, he could no longer tell what was bruised, what was ripped or what was bleeding. His whole body was a single entity of fire and pain.

"Be gone and stay far from this creature of God. For it is He who commands you, He who flung you headlong from the heights of heaven into the depths of hell."

Distantly, Dean realized that he was being exorcized. And even though the last thing Dean wanted was to obey the words coming out of that man's mouth, into the depths of hell was exactly were Dean found himself falling.

"I don't get it," the commander chief of the 3rd district police department said, his well-trimmed mustache twitching disapprovingly under his nose. "The first pair of FBI guys that came by already took copies of all the files... and you guys want new copies? What is it, your buddies can't share?"

Sam sat straighter in his uncomfortable chair, sweat sliding the side of his face. If Castiel choose that specific moment to open his mouth, they would be screwed. In fact, if it weren't for the angel's insistence in 'landing a hand', Sam would've preferred to go by himself.

Truthfully, had things gone the way Sam wanted, neither of them would've come. A simply search on local newspapers would give them the names of the all the victims so far. On of them had to be in a chatty mood.

Bobby, however, would not be moved from his belief that, if they were going to do this, they would be doing it with all the information that they could get their hands on. And because this Exorcist killer had spread his victims all over the city, that meant talking to several commanders, one for each district in Chicago.

Big cities sucked like that.

The first thing that Commander Davies had done, as soon as Sam introduced himself as special agent Gecko and Castiel as special agent Fuller, was call their 'supervisor' for a credentials check. Bobby, stuck in the motel room as a precaution for such events, had been convincing enough to get them inside the commander's office, but not enough to completely kill off his suspicions.

"The documents were incomplete... we need to compare what you've got now to what you sent then," Sam offered straight-faced. Seeing the raised eyebrow on the other man's forehead at the implied sloppiness of his files, Sam added a soothing, "The Bureau really appreciates your cooperation in this matter, Commander Davies... it is in all of our best interests to put this murder behind bars as soon as possible."

The tall, African American policeman leaned back on his chair, eyeing the pair of them. If he was pondering whether to throw them out for excessive bullshitting or grab all the help he could get in catching a serial killer that was spreading fear and death in his city, the second choice seemed to win. "Just get this crazy man off of my streets," he finally said, picking up the phone to call his assistant.

Michael was still fading from view, taken by howling winds this time around, when Dean gasped awake.

He had no idea how long he'd been out. The feeble light of before was gone, replaced by the silver shades of moonlight... which told him nothing about how much time had passed.

It was getting hard to keep track of the days. It seemed like he'd left Blue Earth a month ago and yet, Dean knew that couldn't be right.

He knew how long a person could go without water or food and he knew his own limits. Dean knew that he was dangerously nearing his. He could survive for weeks more, yes, but he would soon become too weak to escape.

And that was the only thought in Dean's mind. He had to escape, or this lunatic was going to kill him, he was sure of that much.

Any other time, Dean knew he could have counted on Sam to find him and come to his rescue; this time though, Sam wouldn't even know Dean was a I need of help. As far as his brother knew, Dean had just run off on him, leaving no clue where he'd gone off to; there was nothing Sam could do about it then, or now. And Dean couldn't blame anyone else but himself for that.

Cass could help Sam, wouldhelp, Dean was sure of that as well, but the marks on Dean's ribs prevented the angel from locating him. Dean guessed that, if push came to shove, he could always try and break his rib cage and call Castiel...

Dean snorted, the sad, maniacal sound of someone slowly slipping away from sanity. It was hard to keep a grip on reality when his waking hours were made of crow-callings and waiting for more pain and his sleep filled with nightmare variations of Michael slipping through his fingers. That grim future, the one where everything was lost, was becoming more and more real each time Dean closed his eyes.

Dean shifted on the floor, feeling every bleeding cut and bruise as an anchor to reality. His shirt was in shreds, barely hanging from his shoulders and even his boxers had large rips in them. Modesty, however, was far from being his main concern at the moment.

Dean needed to get out of there.

As far as he could tell, Dean was pretty sure that, whoever that man was and whatever was wrong with his head, he was trying to exorcise some demon out of Dean.

Which... would be kind of hilarious, if it weren't so fucked up. Dean Winchester, Michael's Sword, was being ridden of his demons by a guy in diapers, who had absolutely no idea about what he was doing.

Mustering his wits about him, Dean slowly got to his knees, as vertical as the length of chain allowed him. He needed to keep mobile, he needed to keep as much of his strength as he could. When chance presented itself, Dean could not be too weak to seize it.

With a deep sigh reserved for tasks that he wished he could avoid, Dean inspected the damage the cilice had left behind. A couple of the lacerations that he could see were still bleeding. There was nothing to be done about the dirt that covered every inch of his skin, seeping into the cuts, but he could at least bind some of the deeper ones and stop the blood from seeping out. He needed the stuff on the inside, not decorating the pale marble.

His shirt was already ruined anyway. It didn't take much effort to rip several stripes of cloth from it to wrap around the worse of the wounds.

Working around the chains was a harder task. If one hand managed to reach a particular cut, the other lacked the length of chain to follow, leaving him to wrap bandages one handed.

He gave up on most of them. Anywhere past his knees, Dean simply couldn't reach.

Exhausted by the effort, Dean watched detachedly as his arms fell limply across his lap, too heavy and shaky to do anything more. It was like the limbs weren't even attached to his body anymore.

He felt light headed, skin stretched too thin over his bones. To some extent, Dean had felt like that ever since he'd returned from Hell. Now, it was like his body was catching up with his spirit.

Bobby's eyebrows rose to his hairline as Castiel popped into the middle of the room, five carton boxes filled to the brim surrounding him. A couple of minutes later, two kicks at the door told him that Sam was carrying the rest in his arms.

"That's a whole lot of information," he whistled, looking at the seven boxes. "If the cops hadn't gotten their hands on this guy, it sure ain't for lack of trying."

"Apparently, the man moves like a ghost," Sam said, having skimmed a few reports as he waited for the rest. "No finger prints, no shoe prints, not even a scattered hair. Actually, if he turns out to be a ghost, our job will be a hell of lot easier," he added with a feral smile. The flames of torched remains were already glinting in his eyes. "Otherwise, we're just wasting our time here," he added with a pointed look at Bobby.

The older hunter responded with a raised eyebrow and the answer was clear enough to the younger man.

It wasn't like Bobby didn't felt the same urgency that was driving Sam. Lord knew his heart was twisted in a knot of concern for the oldest Winchester, thinking about what that poor kid could be going through while they read file after file.

But the kick in the teeth was that none of them were psychic. Well, not like that anyway, in Sam's case. For them to do a séance with no idea whether that particular spirit was at rest or not, was risking disturbing the eternal peace of someone who'd already suffered enough while living. It was not the kind of crap Bobby wanted on his conscience and he knew for a fact that it was the kind of thing Dean would chew them a new one if he knew they were even considering it.

So, no, Bobby wasn't ready to give up and go call the beyond in search of a soul to tell them all the answers. And judging by Sam's frustrated look, the kid got the message loud and clear.

"Well, divvy up and start reading," Bobby called out before Sam could voice any arguments. Leading by example, the old hunter picked up a thick file from the top of the stack and got down to business.

Dean lay back, for once welcoming the coldness of the stone floor. The second his shoulder blades hit the surface, however, the temporary bliss was gone, replaced by a lancing pain that felt like he was being stabbed.

Dean jerked up and gasped, closing his eyes against the wave of dizziness. "Goddamit all to hell!"

He wasn't sure whom he was complaining to, but one of crows perched on the high beams gave him a sideways glance that looked condescending even from afar. In an odd way, it reminded him of Castiel and his confused looks at human's idiosyncrasies. "Screw you!"

Getting back to his knees, Dean got as close as he could to the ring on the floor, hoping to give enough leeway to his right hand to reach his upper back. There was something stuck there, he was sure; he'd felt it bury deeper when he'd leaned back.

His back was slick with sweat and blood, fingers slipping on his skin as Dean tried to reach the crux of the aching point. It was hard to pinpoint an exact location when everything was sore and raw, but as his nail scrapped over metal, the pain was so sharp and vivid that Dean almost pulled his hand away, startled.

Taking a deep breath, he patted the area around until he could grip the metal piece in between the tips of two fingers.

Easier said than done, however. The piece of metal kept on slipping from his grip, like an evasive eel, slipping through his fingers. But once Dean had ascertained where the thing was, it was easier to go back and have another go at pulling it out.

If it weren't for the pathetic amount of water he'd drank for the past days, Dean was sure he'd be drenched in sweat by the time he felt the damn metal slide free of his muscle. As it was, he was just left with the heat and deep exhaustion that made him feel like some baked bread.

Unless he was growing fish bones made out of metal, Dean was pretty sure it was a piece of the fucking cilice that diaper-man had used to whip him. The damn thing must've broken off on his skin.

Looking at the small length of wire covered in his own blood, Dean smiled. It was both small and hard enough for him to use on the lock of his cuffs.

Sam closed the report and leaned back, staring at the white ceiling for a bit. The images he'd been looking at, however, were branded into his brain.

It wasn't like he was squeamish; no hunter could afford that and the Winchesters, raised in the job, were less squeamish than most. After all they had seen, Sam fear they'd become downright desensitized.

Gutted bellies with bowels turned into confetti, locusts flocking out of someone's mouth, half eaten person-buffet... no sweat. Those were the traits of the trade and, through the years, Sam had grown even accustomed to them.

Victim number four was a man in his late twenties, a bartender from a local dive in District five. The picture of a smiling young man, with short-cropped sandy hair, brown eyes and round nose, with his arm affectionately across the shoulders of dark skinned man of Hispanic origins, had little to do with the violent imagery that his mangled corpse's crime scene photos offered.

His body was covered in bruises and what looked like scratch marks; two black pits had replaced the brown eyes and his chest had been cracked open, heart exposed to the elements.

The eyes had been surgically removed and the carefully cauterized, while the victim was still alive, according to the report. Also, fresh water had been found in his lungs, even though none could be found anywhere in the vicinity where the body had been discovered. According to the coroner's report, cause of death had been shock, probably due, the medic had ventured, to either the prolonged torture or the fact that the victim was still alive when his chest was cut open.

The prolonged torture part made bile rise to Sam's mouth.

It was impossible not to replace that man's face with Dean's. Harder even not to despair, imagining what could be happening to his brother in that very instant. Forty years in Hell, and now that he was barely back to the land of the living, Dean was suffering the same thing again.

Was it really a comfort to imagine that a human killer would never be able to reach the levels of cruelty of demons like Alastair?

"Everything okay, Sam?" Bobby's voice cut through the down spiral of pessimism that Sam was falling through. "You look a little grey around the edges."

Sam took a deep breath; he pushed away the image of Dean's ribs cracked open like some messed up piñata and opened the next file on the pile. "I'm fine," he said dryly, even though he spared a feeble smile in the older man's direction. There was no point in pretending that his answer was as sincere as vegetarian lion. "Found anything yet?"

Bobby looked as haggard and tired as Sam felt. They'd been at it for hours now, trying to compress in one day all the information that the police had at their disposal for months. Predictably, they weren't having much more luck than the men in blue. "Nothing that will tell us where this killer is holed up, or whether he has Dean."

"He has Dean," Sam whispered, his tone so certain and final that he wondered from where that certainty came.

Ever since he'd opened that first file and seen the handwritten letter that the killer had left with his first victim, claiming to be doing the will of God and fighting demons, Sam knew that this man had Dean in his possession. "You think he's a hunter? Someone in the business?"

Bobby shook his head, a sour expression in his face. "This guy doesn't know jack squat," he said. "Whatever the hell he's doing, he ain't taking demons out of no one. These people were all drugged with some kind of hallucinogenic, they had snakes bites all over their bodies, water in their lungs... does that sound like any exorcism you've ever heard of?"

Sam had to agree with Bobby there. There were plenty of people in the world claiming that they could expel demons from people's bodies, but most of them didn't have a clue about what they were doing. Most relied on medieval ideas of trances and beatings that had more to do with the show that was put on than actual demons. Most of them had never even seen a demon in their lives.

Like this Exorcist guy.

Sam rubbed his eyes with his thumbs, watching detachedly as white stars popped in and out of his vision when he opened them again.

He had started the week afraid that Dean would end up in Michael's hands and now he was sure that his brother was at the mercy of a serial killer with religious delusions. How was that for an ironic kick in the jewels?

"Found any connection between the victims?" Sam asked, hopefully. Like any other prowling animal, this guy had to have his hunting grounds, a place where he picked his victims from the crowd and grabbed them. And the dead victims were the only ones who could help them with that.

"Diddly," Bobby let out, frustration in every syllabus. "As far as I can tell, he's just your regular wacko with religious misconceptions, going after homosexuals, hookers, addicts and unmarried mothers," he said with an acid tone that spoke clearly what the older hunter thought of such creeps. "I guess the asshole is trying to cast their demons outs," he added with an eye-roll that he reserved particular for such brand of ignorance.

"There's one that doesn't fit," Sam pointed out, searching through the various files until he got the one he was looking for. "Dolores Groton. Housewife, mother of two girls, happily married until she was diagnosed with a late onset of schizophrenia with religious delusions that made her believe she was possessed by demons."

"And she wasn't?" Bobby had to ask, rising from his seat and going over to Sam's side, peeking over his shoulder at the same file. "I mean... it's not like they would know the difference."

"Right," Sam agreed. "But then again, no demon would allow itself to be taken by this guy and slowly tortured," he pointed out.

Dolores, like all the others, had been found without her eyes, chest ripped open and displayed over a rusty car in an abandoned parking lot.

"This guy is grabbing people he sees as sinners and freeing their souls from demons," Sam went on, his eyes getting that glazed over look that said how far deep inside his own head he was at the moment. "And even though none of these people were possessed, Dolores believed that she was... maybe believed it strongly enough to search someone to rid her of her demons... someone like this guy."

Bobby scratched his beard. "What are you saying exactly? That this guy has a shop open somewhere? People just go there and order a demon-free soul?"

Sam looked outside. Chicago had millions of people living there. Millions who needed to believe in something. If they met with just one doomsday preacher who had actually been visited by a bona fide angel, how many of them would believe every word out of his mouth? How many would see that man as a true prophet?

"Bobby, do you know what is the worst thing that can happen to a hypochondriac?" Sam asked, his gaze never leaving the window. When the older man gave him no answer, Sam looked back, his grim face mirroring Bobby's. "Catch a real disease."

TBC

Once more, many thanks to Jackfan2 for her wonderful help. All remaining buu-buus are mine