Chapter 2:
A loud whir of a machine hummed in the air and the light bulbs overhead flickered on to illuminate the circular room of the Men of Letters bunker with stark, bright white light.
The ham radio, telegraph, switchboard and the tables were overlaid with thin layer of dust that had accumulated in place over time, the spider webs had infiltrated the rails of the staircase, the balcony and the shelves of the library.
Castiel could almost see a ghostly image of Dean sitting on the chair, his booted feet propped up lazily on the table, reading his favorite Vogennut in his mind' eye.
The bunker was a constant reminder to Castiel. The sense of Dean's presence in the bunker hasn't dulled over time and it hurt. It was raw to the core, aching and comforting at once, a feeling only a man like him could bring forth in him.
He closed his eyes and focused to push all the emotions away with his grace and found the process difficult. It had been getting harder and harder to stamp the despondency, the grace barely dulling the pain.
With a shaky breath, he moved toward the ham radio, gently brushing the spider webs off the antiquated equipment with his fingers and turned to the desired police frequency to one of the counties of Idaho.
"Control to Car 1, 17-6-0. A possible B-D in progress. 10-6 for further information."
Castiel dragged the chair and set it near to the radio.
"We have 10-59 on the Southeast 13th street and fourth, trauma team and fire control team are en route."
He sat down and propped his elbows on his knees. Slowly, he opened his grace to the Host and listened to the humans' prayers. He could feel millions over millions hitting his ears, fragmented voices, wails, whispers and sounds sinking on his grace. Castiel could hear a woman's weeping in Saudi Arabia. A chorus of singers in a church, a child's whispered prayer for a guardian before bedtime, a man begging in the hospital.
"Por favor, Dios. No deje que mi hija muera. Te lo ruego."
A broken-hearted woman in France, sobbing.
"Ca fait mal. S'il vous plait, prenez-le."
The prayers overlapped with the voices of the radio, all tense, commanding, laughing, crying and whispering.
"All unit to the Mall of Americas, a possible 10-30—"
"Voglio vincere, fammi vincere. . ."
"Victim is hurt, unconscious. Request a 10-56 . . ."
". . . and wake me gently with God's. . ."
Castiel listened them all.
It was four days after when a homicide detective's whispered prayer had caught Castiel's attention through the million voices filtering within the grace and from the radio.
"Oh, god. Oh, god, who would do this? So many bloods, I don't understand—why she would kill them? Please, god, make me understand."
Castiel honed on it, shutting off the rest of the prayers and listened attentively on the detective's harsh breathing.
"… hey, are you okay?" It wasn't the detective's voice, someone different altogether and almost familiar, "You're new, aren't you? Here, this will help."
The man was speaking to the detective but Castiel ignored his voice, focusing more on important matters. He felt himself tense when he glimpsed the detective's thoughts of images trailed entrails of a victim and painted walls with strange symbol like a snippet from flipped pages.
His wing unfurled and he willed himself to the source of the prayer.
The angel found himself standing on the middle of the curious crowd, looking across the apartment building. The police cars' blocked the street as their sirens blared loudly, flashing with its red and blue light.
He sensed the half-demonic aura, near. But to his disappointment, it was no longer there. The woman had already fled.
Castiel frowned at the police officers who guarded entrance of the lobby, allowing only paramedics and few uniforms to enter. The angel hesitated, debating himself for a moment whether if he could pass as FBI to garner entrance of the building to the crime scene. The fake Id was still in his pocket but his people skills with humans were never one of his strengths, even when he was human.
His thoughts halted into a crash to a loud thudding heartbeat against his chest when he saw someone he recognized—someone that he would know that face anywhere, down to the last detail—and he felt his mouth go completely dry.
For a second, Castiel thought he had seen a man in FBI suit that looked very much like Dean but when he blinked, the man was gone.
He fisted his hand so tightly, his knuckles turning white, growing angry with himself. It wasn't the first time he had thought he saw Dean and he doubted this time would be the last.
Dean is dead, he told himself. Dean is dead.
He felt a part of him hardened something solid, stronger than metal and rock and something in his beating heart-felt cold and empty until there was weariness and numbness. He scorched his grief and loss with his grace, leaving him nothing except a soldier.
And he waited.
The lone police officer who stayed behind to guard the doorway of the crime scene suddenly collapsed with a soft thump when Castiel pressed his two fingers on his forehead. Satisfied with his work, the angel whirled around to study the spacious apartment.
Castiel blinked at the sheer redness and realized the demon overdid herself.
Almost the entire living room was painted with blood—gallons of dried blood splashed on the furniture, walls, floor in thickening trails but there were no bodies. The police had taken them away hours ago.
Castiel dropped his eyes at the cocktail glasses, champagne flutes, opened beer bottles and crumpled napkins scattered on the tables and counter of the kitchen, and there were snacks and appetizers on a bowl of plates around the living room.
A small gathering, it seemed. That explained the dozen crackling energies of souls as he tried to gain sense of those who had been here. There had been small crowd of people and it appeared she had killed few of them. The warrior in him was almost impressed she managed to overpower many of them at the same time, but then the demons always had been stronger than humans.
Castiel followed the smear of footprints to the hallway and down the bedroom where the bloody hieroglyphics symbols awaited him. It was similar to the symbol from the Tanner's house but the red lines were drawn in shaky shapes. It almost looked frantic, hurried.
The angel was jarred from his thoughts when a shrill sound pierced the air. Castiel jerked his head at the phone sitting on the night table; it went silent once again then resumed ringing and ringing. He hesitantly picked up to peer at the three bold numbers on the caller ID: 666.
The angel glowered at the number and answered the call, "Crowley."
"How is the Nancy Drew sleuthing business working out for you?" Crowley's voice drawled and Castiel could almost feel the former demon smile.
"How you did get this number?" He demanded, "How did know where I was?"
"You don't expect me to spill all my magician tricks, do you, Chuckles? Otherwise nobody will find how sexy I am for being such clever, clever, clever demon."
"You were demon." The angel threw Crowley's word back to him.
"Pish-posh, semantics."
Exasperated, he asked, "Is there a purpose for this call?"
"But of course," There was a sound of a wheels scrapping on the floor through the receiver, "The fat postman sang. It was no La Traviata but it was something."
There was a sound of slapping and a moan.
"Wakey, wakey, your eight o'clock phone call is here." A brief pause followed with a rustle of clothes and a clatter of metal touching metal, "Good. Now, tell him what you said to me."
The mailman's voice came, weak, "I don't want to—"
Words were cut off by a grunt of pain and from the way the mailman was breathing, Castiel guessed Crowley had hit him with a blunt object.
"Try again or this little sledgehammer is going to your kneecaps." Crowley's voice threatened.
There was a sound of whimper and a loud gulp as if trying to catch the breath, "There are others like me." The mailmen groaned, "They found me. I don't know h-how but they did."
"What else?" The former king of hell coaxed.
"T-they told me to look for others but I don't have clue where to look them—they told me to bring them."
Castiel felt himself tense at this information.
"Where?" Crowley asked.
"Abandoned warehouse . . . on . . . on Mountain Home, building 8."
That was surprising. It wasn't far from this apartment, about twenty miles from here.
There was a patting noise, "Good boy, I'll give you a treat later." Crowley said, "You got this, angel?"
"Yes." Castiel said slowly, frowning, "But I don't understand. Why are you helping me?"
"You mean after you snubbed me?" Crowley retorted snidely. A thin noise wheels came again and Crowley's voice was closer this time, dropping into a growl, "It's my bloody case and you're not going to take it from me. As much it pains me, I need all the help and that includes you, Mr. I-like-working-alone."
He knew there was a catch, "In exchange for?"
"To keep me appraised." Crowley paused for a moment then confessed as if it was a poison for him, "I like to hear for once that it's over."
Castiel's eyes widened. At that at least Castiel understood and did not blame him.
"Very well. I'll keep you informed."
He hung up, opening his wings wide open but hesitated in time when he felt a familiar spoor of human's soul, the one he felt at Tanner's house.
It was the same hunter.
Castiel shook his head and flew to the warehouse.
All around him was chaos in the warehouse and it took a moment for Castiel to get his bearing. He was surprised to find so much smoke billowing inside the warehouse that he couldn't even see his surroundings clearly. His lips thinning, he almost regretted his decision to fly headlong without checking the place first.
He saw angry glows within the smoke, the roar of a sound sucking up the air, creating a blistering heat.
Fire.
Instinct kicked in and Castiel moved with purpose, moving through the smoky hallway that was mix of flickering light and floating gust of ash that blew in the swirling wave of scorching heat. He paused on the stairwell, hearing the moan and rumble of the fire coming to its full strength.
There was a scream from somewhere in his left and emerging through the wall of fire, a man appeared like Kali, the goddess of destruction, wreathed in flames. The man looked at the angel and through the burning flesh, his eyes went completely black.
Demon.
The man went for him, screaming hideously, perhaps for help but Castiel easily sidestepped him, not wanting to touch him. Suddenly, the demon exploded few feet from him, sending a gust of heat on Castiel's skin and it left scorch mark on the floor.
The angel frowned at the strange explosion.
"Help! Help!" Someone cried.
He looked at the ceiling where the source of cry had come from.
The angel appeared to the second floor of the storeroom, pausing for a moment. There was a vague sense of pain, and the angel glanced down to see the flames licking up around his shoes. He scowled at the unbearable heat at it and proceeded to ignore it.
"Help!" A woman's voice screamed from somewhere, "Someone!"
Above Castiel, a glass shattered from the upper third floor. He lifted his eyes to see just in time to catch a demon soaring through the stairwell window's office and to the air like a ball of fire before it crashed on the floor with a splash of ashes, leaving another blackened scorch mark on the floor.
This was getting puzzling.
"Somebody!"
Snapping his attention to the left and followed the sound through the smoke, noting distantly that the flames had begun to lick down the walls, slithering against it.
He searched around the crates, sidestepping the debris and the flames as best he could. His feet bumped something solid and found a dead man with a stab wound in the middle of the chest. He smelt sulfur on him, heavy and pressing. A dead demon.
Castiel blinked, worrying for a second because the woman had stopped screaming through the roar of fire.
Towering flames had slithered up to the ceiling, siphoning ever last bit of oxygen within the caged inferno and beneath him, he could feel the ground rumble and shake, causing by the multiplying numbers of fire and heat.
It didn't take him long to realize the room was about to explode. He knew he had minute or two.
He hurried forward, glancing around the corner of the crates and found something, or someone.
A hand poked out the edge of the crate and Castiel kneeled to grab it. His hand clasped on the girl's hand firmly, he chanced to glance over his shoulder to glimpse an inferno surging forth, rumbling as if the freight train were in tow, wrenching the walls and the floor as the crates disappeared into the blaze.
Castiel could hear nothing above the roar of fire and the screech of metal being pulled apart—
— and there was no time to do anything after that except to fly.
