Chapter Four

Omaha

Next Morning

Dean parked the Impala on a side street two blocks away from the county office building where the unlucky Elkhorn citizens rested at the coroner's office. The public street was less likely to have cameras, best to stay off the grid. They'd had plenty of luck with their fake ID's, but that didn't mean he had to park conspicuously and proclaim their presence. In his experience luck only lasted so long before trouble, often in the form of a SWAT team with a battering ram, came knocking at your door.

He'd eaten a light breakfast just in case the coroner wanted to show off his mysterious cadavers. Forensic doctors tended to be over zealous in their work and time spent in lonely basement morgues made them seem almost lonely. Whenever he and Sam went undercover as CDC they were ready to be grossed out. Years of visiting morgues, seeing bloated, discolored, and dismembered bodies, had never completely taken away the urge to hurl, especially when the bodies were particularly ripe with disease. Walking along side him, Sam looked fully Federal in his black suit and red tie. He'd slicked back his hair and shaved just that morning. Dean knew with his own short hair he ought to be the more visually convincing of the two, but with Sam it was much more than appearances that sold him as a Fed. He seemed to like acting like a pompous know it all, and again Dean was reminded of how well Sam would have handled himself in a courtroom. Sam looked relaxed enough, but Dean noted how he had skipped a second coffee, and had only eaten half his pancakes. Sam hated dealing with dead bodies just as much as he did.

They both knew well that these bodies were likely to be as potent as the one they had found the night before. Last evening, after spotting the body that Ruby claimed was infected with the Plague, they had exited the motel quickly and headed towards the next town. Sam insisted there was no harm if they let someone else find the motel clerk. Ruby had been almost hysterical telling them someone else would get the disease if they came upon her unknowingly, but Sam, the walking encyclopedia of weirdness that he was, had insisted only blood to blood contact would spread plague. Try convincing someone who lived through it of that, but strangely, Sam did just that. Dean stole a glance at Sam, who had not spoken since they had parked the car. Sam's mind must have been elsewhere, probably gearing up for the ruse they were about to pull off. His younger brother liked to get into character, he preferred to ad lib.

Security at the building was a typical metal detector and ID check. With their weapons in the car, the boys had nothing to worry about, but Dean knew the day would come when retinal scans were required. He just hoped to be out of the business by then. It was hard to believe the same technology that made hunting more accurate could be such a pain in the ass. Too bad the FBI couldn't accept the favor hunters did them and put them on the payroll. Well, this was no X-files, so he could just stop dreaming.

The first stop was the coroner, Dr. Leonard's office. They were greeted by a man their age wearing a badge that stated his name as Dr. Thomas. He shook their hands with determination and openness like one colleague to another. "You feds move fast. I just called the CDC an hour ago. I sent over the fax, so I was wondering when they'd send someone out."

"We're out of the local office. Agent Robertson, Agent Helm." Both men flashed their badges simultaneously. "We're looking to see if there's any pattern to these deaths."

"Have your autopsy reports drawn any conclusions?" Sam added, trying to sound astute.

"Well it was in the report I faxed out yesterday," the doctor looked towards Sam impatiently. "Outwardly it could have been half a dozen different diseases that manifest in these symptoms, fever, swollen glands showing an involvement of the lymph system, but the onset and the time until their deaths, was so brief it had me baffled until I took a second look at their bloodwork. These people all had advanced deterioration of their mucus membranes, they had internal bleeding, gangrenous sores. You get one person like this you think maybe its advanced stage HIV, but this was five folks in three days, this is definitely a contagion. Their primary cause of death was a bacterial infection. Are you ready for this in 2008?" He appeared excited by his discovery. "They died of bubonic plague."

"Nobody dies of the plague." Dean stated all too hastily, his brow wrinkling as if the doctor's words were a delusion the man had created to explain what he couldn't figure out. But Dean knew he and Sam dealt with all manner of the unexplainable, the plague in modern America wasn't much, given what they'd seen. So Ruby was right, God he hated conceding to her.

"It's possible," Sam added, "but it's spread by contact with fleas, it's November, wouldn't they be dead?"

"Not if the conditions were right, it's possible, but we're also dealing with a bacterium, so in theory if someone were to bite or bleed on another it could be spread."

"But I'm guessing that's not what you saw? That they didn't get it from each other? " Dean asked.

"It's possible, since it spreads through blood, but mostly though from the bites of fleas or an infected animal if it pierces the skin since humans don't usually bite each other. And there were no bite marks on the bodies-human or otherwise. That's why you don't think about it as an illness anymore. Most of the world's a lot cleaner than it was in the 1300's. Not so many rats or fleas. There hasn't been a case of plague in Nebraska in over twenty years, and even that odd case was an isolated hermit living out in the middle of nowhere in a house without electricity or running water." Dr. Thomas fixed Dean with a challenging stare. "So what's the CDC plan on doing?" Dean looked to Sam for silent confirmation. This was definitely a case. "These people weren't from the same families or even the same neighborhoods."

Sam's brow was wrinkled up the way it always was when he was deep in thought and didn't have an answer. "And you've ruled out any comorbid diseases?" That gained a nod of affirmation from the doctor. Sam with the fancy vocabulary, he had a way of being convincing in what ever role they played. "We're going to exercise caution, not panic the people of Elkhorn. Would you have a copy of the report we could take a look at right now?" Sam used his sweet soft voice and his gentle little head dip and the assistant coroner gladly complied.

Dean and Sam never wasted time leaving a building after impersonating federal officers. Dean whisked them out of Omaha and back towards their motel while Sam put together the real story of the deaths of these people. The file didn't contain much. There was a medical history for every victim, and an interview of family and the people who found them. Sam had a gut feeling this was a case since they'd driven into town. But a case involving demons, that he wasn't so sure of. Bobby's intel was always spot-on; so the hunter part of him held faith that this was true, but the psychic part of him, the abilities he'd yet to share with Dean, were uncertain. In the months of Dean's absence Ruby had shown him how to sense demons without relying on following omens. And right up to the day Dean found him in the motel in Pontiac, Illinois, he had no trouble sensing their presence nearby or as far as a hundred miles away.

Then Dean came back. Hiding his abilities from Dean somehow caused them to atrophy. What Ruby surmised would be a natural flow of energy from that ticking bomb inside him shrunk back into him and threatened to shrivel up and die. And so he had to return to the blood ritual, that summoning of Azazel's "gift" Ruby had shown him as a method of focus. It was witchcraft, but he supposed it wasn't all that different from some of the rituals he'd seen Bobby do, and the outcome of Bobby's work wasn't demonic or self-serving. Nor was his; it served humanity.

"Hey! Wake up little Suzy!" Sam blinked. His eyes felt dry and he coughed and stretched. Crap! Dean had caught him "trancing".

"Must have fell asleep with my peepers open!" Dean laughed along with him as they remembered the first, and only time, they'd heard someone say that. It'd been years before in Wisconsin when they'd been hunting the striega. For at least a month after that old lady had spooked them by speaking when the thought she was asleep or worse, they had amused themselves with that expression. Dean loosened his tie as he drove, his grim face a bit lightened. Sam had succeeded in changing his focus.

"So, Sammy, what are you finding? Cause all I'm getting is flashes of a Stephen King miniseries that I don't want to be a part of. You think this could be pestilence, some part of an apocalyptic end game? What did these people all have in common besides living in the same town?"

"They were all are over fifty, had preexisting vascular conditions." His eyes scanned towards the bottom of the page. "Interesting, they'd all been on the same bus trip."

"Bus trip, like the senior center bus trip? To what? There's absolutely nothing to do in this backwater." Dean's tie was finally free and he tossed to the backseat. He was fidgeting with his collection of tapes; Sam shot him a look. If Dean so much as thought of Motorhead, he was going to pound him. Annoying Sam with that particular tape was just what Dean liked to do when he felt tense, and his older brother seemed more restless than intrigued by the case. He couldn't blame him, they both needed a rest from the apocalypse. A wendigo or a crocotta would be more interesting and less threatening now, but it would just distract from them from the focus: Lillith. It didn't matter if Dean was tired of all this demonic omen crap. The end of the world waited for no one; they'd have to see this job through to the end. But that didn't mean ticking Sam off with loud metal wouldn't be a fine distraction before the main attraction began.

The tape was an unmarked copy; so Sam had to wait an agonizing five seconds before the reel made it's way around. When the music began at an ear bleeding volume, Sam jumped a mile. "Ugh! I knew it! Not this shit again!" He was too quick for Dean. He popped it out of the tape deck and tossed it to the backseat. "Next time, it goes out the window. I have my limits!"

"Hey hey! Got ya!" Dean was bouncing a bit in his seat like a happy child. "Truce, I call Metallica, you said you liked their ballads." Strands of Sam's slicked back hair came free as he shook his head in disgust. It was true he could stomach Metallica, but it was more for the lyrics that he found speaking to him, reminding him how to some he might be the Hero of the Day, and to others the Unforgiven. He'd bet anything Dean felt the same way. The tape was several decibels lower now and Dean would be able to hear him speak.

"Dean, if you haven't noticed we're on a case." The files held some info worth investigating. "The bus trip was to Fremont, Church of the Good Shepherd. To play Bingo." Sam quipped.

"Bingo!" Dean smirked. "Hey that's almost as much fun to say as Yahtzee." Sam grimaced. "Well, where's this church? Let's play."

"Wait a minute," Sam shuffled the paperwork before him seemingly ignoring Dean's question. "They didn't just play Bingo that day, they were regulars." Sam looked like an excited child; he always did when he'd realized something essential to cracking a case. "I'll keep reading Dean, you get us to Fremont."

Ten minutes later they'd arrived in the small town of Fremont. The church was on the main street and the large BINGO banner conspicuously strapped to the brick front of the building marked their location better than a GPS. Dean parked the Impala in a row near the exit at the back of the church. Sam was still reading as he turned off the ignition. "Put the book down Urkel, let's go play Bingo."

Fremont, Nebraska

Church of the Good Shepherd: Bingo Room

Dean Winchester immediately noticed the swivel of heads as he and Sam entered the large open room. Sam piped up with his thoughts exactly. "Looks like the Centrum Silver crowd. There was a bus out front, right," Sam looked around with worry tinged with panic when not one but two older woman checked him out. Catching a wink from a white haired grandma made his eyes go round. He turned to Dean and grabbed the front of his jacket. "Look, I'm not taking one for the team this time. Okay. If old Gert flirts, she's all yours." He shook pointed his finger subtly at Dean.

"Funny. Admit it, you like older women." That earned him the trade mark Sam look, he'd already gotten how many that day? "Don't look so traumatized; let's just get this over with." They both paid their entrance fee and took five cards a piece. The tables were mostly full except for one in the middle of the room, so much for being inconspicuous. A middle aged woman in her early fifties moved about the room with youthful grace. With curly sandy brown hair and a thin fit body, she looked like someone who alternated her days at the local co-op and the Yoga center, and she seemed to be in charge of managing the players and their cards. Once they settled in their seats Sam spread his cards out before him letting his long bangs cover his eyes.

"This place looks normal enough," he said keeping his focus on the table before him.

"How would you know?" Dean whispered. "You haven't looked up since we came in." Dean pulled a card away from Sam. "Trade ya, for good luck." He gave a quick smile and shut up. Numbers were called very quickly by an older man who despite his age didn't look frail, sort of like Clint Eastwood. If he lived that long that's how he'd want it to be, but with his life and the sacrifices it entailed making it through his thirties was unlikely, let alone living to eighty. Getting into the game was easy and it was basic, and caused the mostly geriatric crowd to raise their voices in excitement as each letter number combination was read. Dean was filling up a diagonal quickly on one card and wondering if this might be easier than hustling pool, when Sam called out.

"Bingo!" His gawky younger brother was met by the middle aged Yoga woman who wore a badge that named her as Angela Markham. She checked his card and verified the win.

She pushed a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled, "you get a special card for that win." She placed it before Sam along with a slip of paper he could cash in later. Her flowing skirt twirled as she turned to walk away, a true cougar, and after Sam, what was it with these older women and his brother? Dean barely had time to bare his teeth and let out a small mocking growl. Geek boy was still hard on the case and after the facts.

"Excuse me." Sam's quiet voice caused Angela to turn. As frightened as he was that he might have to fight off her advances he looked her directly in the eyes. "Isn't this the place where all those Elkhorn folks who got sick were playing? Are you worried you could catch something?"

"What, like legionnaire's disease?" She shook her curls confidently and her cheeks showed a set of dimples as charming as Sam's. She was an attractive woman and she knew it, but something in her nonchalance demeanor didn't seem right, didn't seem appropriately remorseful. "I know those people came down with something after being here, but there's no connection to our church."

"Your church?" Dean jumped into the conversation.

"Yes, I'm a deacon here at Good Shepherd, and the Bingo hostess, among other things. It's awful what happened, but I heard they were sick to begin with. Unfortunately a lot of our frequent players are ill." Her glance went a few tables away to a man wearing oxygen. "They're older, but they have a good time while they can. Who can begrudge them that? We have tons of players, even younger people like yourself who are just passing through, and they aren't getting sick. It's a sad coincidence."

"I'm sure the CDC will figure something out or the FBI. This one's too obvious to just fly under the radar." Dean pointed out.

"I hope they work fast, if it is an epidemic, there's no telling how many lives could be affected, and young people like yourself, that would be a shame." Her dimples appeared again, but her smile never reached her eyes. Sam may have begun the conversation, but it was Dean who was continuing it, probing for answers, and now holding her attention. She heard her name called and gave them a quick nod before heading to another table.

Dean shoved Sam's upper arm. "I think she likes me, not you." He continued in a whisper. "And that was my card, my win!"

"You traded! And I told you, I'm done with older women." Sam said in a voice that was laugh out loud funny and out of character. "I wonder what I made." He sing songed. But Dean didn't join him; he glanced at Sam's new play card.

"Dude, that's got serious spell work on it." He whispered, and Sam slipped the card into his coat as slyly as possible before exchanging a look of understanding with his older brother. The two stayed long enough to play through several more games to avoid Angela's suspicion, then exited, hoping no one noticed.

As they crossed the parking lot, Sam spoke first. "I don't trust Angela Markham."

"Deacon Markham? Me neither. She made me think of a carnival fortune teller with the wavy gravy skirt and the chunky jewelry. Weird."

Sam stopped to zip his coat, and Dean pulled his collar up against the cold arctic wind that made Nebraska feel more like North Dakota. "She's a witch."

"How do you know?"

"Just a feeling."

"Like your psychic stuff? Can you read her mind or something?" Dean frowned. When Ruby talked about Sam using his powers again he wanted nothing more than to send her back downstairs. As much as he hated to admit how she saved Sam, he still didn't trust her. And sadly, he didn't always believe what his brother had to say, especially in regards to his abilities. Sam had told him before that he wasn't using them, and wouldn't, but that had been proven a lie several times. Sam's next words added insult to injury.

"I think we should check this out with Ruby. Maybe she knows what those sigils mean, if they're part of spell work or a summoning ritual." Dean cast a hard glare at his younger brother, hadn't they already been down this route. Give it time and Sam would choose to go off with his demon lover or whatever she was. He tried to smile, but it was strained. Trying to stay casual was an effort in the face of what he was truly thinking, but pressing Sam into a corner might end with him choosing Ruby. Sam had already demonstrated a willingness to use his psychic powers despite saying he was finished with them, and that had to be due to Ruby's encouragement. Dean sensed there was more that had happened in absence and since his return than his younger brother hadn't let on about. They'd had secret meetings before he'd even gone to the pit; why would they stop now.

He'd joke, make Sam comfortable, reassured. "Sure, whenever Ruby flies in on her broom, we'll let her take a look." He stopped in front of Sam, hand outstretched. "Sam, let me see that card." When he made contact with Sam's coat sleeve, Sam visibly flinched and shook him off. Dean lifted his hands like he was being interrogated by the police. If the casual non threatening route wasn't working, he had more than one trick up his sleeve. He could make Sam see it his way; he had with less effort, when a lot more was at stake. "We don't need to consult a demon. Anyway, I say we go the direct route, we check out Angela Markham later after Bingo. She's the one that gave you the card. So, if she's really a witch, like you seem so convinced of, she's probably the one who created it."

Sam only had one object in mind, asking Ruby for advice. With his knowledge and the resources he had he could have researched the sigil himself easily, or given Bobby a call. There was more to what Sam wanted, and it'd been that way for some time now. Dean could only guess what Sam was going through having to remain after loosing him and having to come to terms with what Yellow-Eyes did to him. Still, just because he'd been hurting was no excuse for bad manners. Dean had been through plenty; a Vietnam vet was likely the only person who'd even come close to knowing his pain. He gave so much to his family, to people in general, but there was no money in it and barely ever a "thank you for saving my life" from those he helped.

"Whatever, Dean, you go do that-after, but I wanna see if Ruby's heard anything new. She'll have a good idea of what sigils those are and I've got those two new books we picked up at Bobby's. Let's get back to the motel and start there." Sam's voice was velvety soft, a perfect match for the dewy innocent look he affected. Next came the tilt of his head, the slight lift of his brow. Practiced. But today, Dean wasn't falling for it. Today it only served to be infuriating, one more grain of salt in the wound named Ruby. For as helpful as she was, Dean wasn't falling for it, and though he'd never admit it out loud, he didn't want to share his brother with the Hell Bitch.

Sam dodged around him, his long legs carrying him towards the waiting car.

Dean had to move faster, but he passed in front of Sam once again. It looked like the direct route was his only option. "Sure, get the latest from the demon network, yeh, great intel. Really reliable." All efforts at persuasion were disappearing like a snowman in the Texas sun. "You forget, we don't know where she is."

"Lay off Dean, Ruby's been helpful." Sam pressed forward into Dean. He wouldn't touch him, and never taken a swing no matter how angry he'd become at his brother's exceptional stubbornness, but that didn't mean, he wouldn't use his size to his advantage to simply move what ever obstruction out of his way. "Dean? Move out of my way." Dean stayed in position. Sam huffed jutting his lower lip out a little. "You gonna hit me? Cause if you're all done here, I'm gonna go find Ruby and you know, keep working the job."

It was Dean who backed down, concern written across his face. "Maybe I'd trust her more if she just didn't come and go so mysteriously. I mean, where is she now? Huh? How do you find her? Got something you want to tell me?"

Sam looked back over his shoulder; he seemed to be trying to keep from bursting with anger. "I'm going back to the motel, see you later." He passed by the Impala and his last chance of reconciling with Dean and headed up the highway. There hadn't been too much snow yet; the shoulder of the road was covered in the left over grime, salt, and mud that was a part of typical winter road maintenance in Nebraska, but there were no snow banks. At least Sam wouldn't be walking half in the road, he'd hitch a ride with someone, get back to the motel just fine. Their motel was just west of Elkhorn; at least ten miles from the church parking lot. Dean resisted the urge to call out to Sam, to try to get him into the car. His brother was a grown man and knew how to take care of himself, but wasn't that his job? "Not anymore. He doesn't need you."

Self-doubt wasn't helping him any, nor was staring at Sam's shrinking back as the distance grew between them. In the end he just drove off, in the opposite direction, better to let things blow over, cool down. The ungrateful whelp could have his way this time, and maybe Ruby would have the answers. But he missed the simple times when he could ask Dad or even Bobby for help without having to defer to a meddling demon with questionable intentions. Sam seemed reluctant to involve Bobby, and he feared it was for more reasons than just trying to keep the man they knew like a father safe. Sam was never that altruistic, not when he was in need, Sam could be quite the selfish bastard, and a spoiled one too. Dean knew there was only one cure for his jumbled feelings. His fingers slid to the old style knobs on his tape deck. The speakers sprang to life carrying the voice of James Hetfield loud and clear. Yep, nothing to it. Sam was slipping away and all he had was his car, this stupid tape he'd heard a thousand times, angels with cryptic missions, and hell on his ass. Great life if you don't weaken. The flat stretch of highway begged the Chevy to run free. Dean gave the old girl what she wanted and raced along empty road with Metallica blaring from his speakers.