Chapter 4 –
Wingspan 50 or 55 feet, Dean catalogues. Height, maybe six feet, wings – fully functional. Tail, yep, but short in comparison to the wingspan, like a long skirt in the back; feathers dark...some dark color, not completely black. Looks womanly shaped, maybe, all covered in feathers, but definitely person, not animal-legs, plus, breasts – also feathered. Almost a collar of white feathers around its neck like one of those lace ruffs in the old movies. Damn, comes to a knife fight well prepared, looking at eight talons – each as long as a machete. Eyes are like an eagle – golden and flashing.
The wings clap together in front of the monster.
THUNDER.
Yep, this must be a Thunderbird.
It has only been seconds, but Dean keeps his mental list of how to describe a monster attack as he raises his model 1911 .45 and fires off three slugs toward center mass. His lifetime of training keeps him focused both on the action of the encounter, and on the aspects of the creature he is fighting.
If knowledge of monsters is any kind of education, Dean figures he and Sammy are professors by now, so adding another new monster to his list of encounters always makes him aware of basics again.
"If it bleeds, we can kill it," Dean shouts over to his brother.
It is all taking place so swiftly that it is only as the third report finishes its echo that the three hunters are on their feet, having grouped together in front of the Impala, blankets and sleeping bags kicked aside to keep them from tangling around someone's feet.
Dean motions Cas towards Bernie, and his angel understands, giving a silent nod. Cas has been tasked now with keeping the civilian safe, and he pulls her down into a crouch between the cars, reaching up to open the jeep door and pushing her inside, forceful but gentle. Cas has been given a second job as well; he has a good digital Nikon SLR in hand pre-set for low light conditions. He braces against the jeep with the camera in front of his eye, brow furrowed in concentration. His job is to keep pointing it up and taking photos, knowing swinging the camera around will only produce blurry photos, like the Campbell boy's or the earlier newspaper photo.
The brothers stand back-to-back with shoulders almost touching as each scans his portion of the sky. Their two-handed grip holding the weapons up and steady to protect each other and their third partner, whose task will prevent him from doing it himself.
"Sammy, I'll cover you. Let's try shotgun – with specials - and a rifle, blessed silver bullets." The Winchesters have a special mix they use in their monster shotguns, they re-load shells with salt, iron filings, and blessed silver shavings. They like to have something ready for when they're not sure what'll work.
The brothers step to the back of the Impala where Sam opens it and ducks in to get the suggested long guns. Dean has to step away from the Impala as he tries to keep a 360 watch on the dark sky. Sam's head is still inside the Chevy when another concussive thunderclap makes him jerk back, banging his head on the inside of the trunk.
Dean gives a brief yelp, but fires off three more rounds into the darkness above them. "Damn, Sam. Is this thing that fast or did it go all Susan Storm on us?" He feels blood dripping from his head, and he's hoping it's the monster's not his. He can see his brother as Sam hands him the rifle, covering them with the shotgun as Dean slips the handgun away and shoulders the Remington.
"Cas? You okay?" Dean asks because in a firefight it's always best to know the position of your friends and foes, and he's lost sight of the angel.
"I'm fine, Dean. I am not the one with blood running down my face. That would be you and Sam," exasperation is evident in Cas's tone.
THUNDER.
Dean and Sam both open fire this time. There's a flurry above them, a pained screech and several feathers fall, but then it's gone.
For now at least.
They wait a painfully long time before the tension dissipates, sure now that it's not a feint or a trick, before Sam hands the shotgun to his brother and goes over to carefully collect the feathers from the ground. He checks for blood as well. Cas picks up blankets and sleeping bags, shaking them out and bundling them into the car. Dean collects the first aid kit as the four gather together in the Impala. The brothers place the first aid bag between them in the front seat, turn on the inside light and start assessing the injuries on each other's heads while Castiel and Bernie examine the feathers.
It doesn't take long to clean and assess Sam's head injury. It's a bump and a cut, but head wounds bleed pretty badly. Dean wipes antibiotic ointment on it, and tapes a gauze pad to it. "You'll be good as new in a minute," he says with a crooked grin. "Not much in there to get hurt anymore."
"Thank you, Doctor Sexy," Sam cracks dryly. "Now it's your turn. Slide your head back and sit still. I'm gonna put in a few stitches. Good thing it wasn't me," Sam adds. Dean is looking up at his brother and he can see Sam wants him to ask why, so he doesn't – Sam shouldn't be so obvious, the older brother thinks.
That doesn't stop the angel in the back seat from asking why though. "Because I'm taller. It would have done a lot more than just scratch me."
"Just a scratch, huh?" Dean asks, readying another pop reference as he says it Monty Python style, until he decides to clamp his mouth shut so he doesn't make any unmanly sounds as his brother starts the first of the seven stitches he will use to close the gash.
Bernie takes advantage of the break in the banter to ask a question. "Um, guys, I know I've never been on a hunt before, but do you always try to kill whatever it is before even finding out for sure what it is, or why it's doing what it's doing?" Her boss has encouraged her to find out as much as she can about the Winchesters and Castiel.
"Yeah, that's us. We're just the grunts they call in to kill'em," Dean grumps. "We're the exterminators for dangerous shit the police aren't equipped to handle. The Exterminators, hey, Sam - we should have a theme song."
Sam looks at him, and with a complete deadpan expression he says, "Who you gonna call?"
"I call dibs on Venkman!" Dean says, throwing up his arm, only to have his brother patiently move it back down with a stern look. He's trying to sew this guy's head up, after all.
"I don't understand that reference," Castiel says –very seriously. "That thing - that Thunderbird, which is most certainly not angelic - killed someone," Cas interjects, turning to look directly at the tall woman sitting next to him. "It attacked us without stopping to ask us why we were there. It is enough that Dean and Sam have always put their lives on the line to protect innocents. They should not try to form some type of catch and release program for monsters."
"He's definitely Spengler," Dean says, grinning and pointing at his brother. "Let's find a copy of it to show him … That'll make you Stantz, the wordy optimist geek. Hell, I think it makes us copy cats. Nah, I think dad had already started the family business before it came out."
"You know that Venkman's portrayed as a slut and a con-man," Sam asks his brother. Cas snorts, and Dean looks at him from the corner of his eye - without moving his head this time - and wonders if his angel's been taking lessons in bitchface from his brother.
"My baby's much cooler, though than the Ghostbusters truck." Dean offers a silly grin. "God, do you remember how much Dad hated that movie?"
Bernie is looking back and forth at the two brothers, disconcerted. She didn't see anything so frivolous in them earlier and is puzzled by it now. "Do you always resort to silly pop culture references?"
She gets two yesses and a snort in answer. Cas saying he doesn't always get the movie references either, but now that Sam has finished sewing up his brother's head, he turns to look at Bernie as he packs up the medical kit. "In the middle of stitching my brother's head - in a car - in the middle of nowhere – without anesthesia? Yes, we'll discuss anything that'll help us get our minds off the reality of the situation."
Bernie blushes faintly and dips her head in apology. "Oh, of course, I wasn't thinking. I guess it just really rattled me, all the shooting." She raises her head up to look him in the eye. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, it's okay." Dean says. "You did good for a first timer." Then he throws in that patented Dean Winchester no-holds-bar, sex-you-up look that has relieved women of their panties all across America, and Sam decides he better step in before Cas kills his brother, because if looks could kill, his brother would be dead, again. Or come to think of it, before Sam can kill him because he knows his brother is not oblivious to Sam's interest in the TA.
"Well, if it's any consolation, we usually do all the research before a hunt ourselves. It's not like we come in blind and start shooting." Sam's willing to explain, but he doesn't want her to oversimplify what they were doing out there tonight.
"I guess I'm still trying to figure out what you consider monsters, and what is a person who is, umm, other than human," she stumbles a little. "Do you automatically kill something because it isn't human? I guess that's what I'm getting at." Bernie wishes she had a way to record the answers, but she's going to do her best to remember every word.
The Winchesters share a look, answering this gets assigned to Sam. Castiel moves closer to the door, and stills, hands fisted on his knees.
"We've gone around on this very topic quite a few times, actually," Sam starts, easily falling into the guest lecturer mode he took on in San Antonio. "We've pretty much decided that if it is supposed to be dead, like a ghost or a vengeful spirit, we'll make it dead or inert."
He's starting with the easy stuff, slowly working onto more difficult concepts. "Then, if whatever it is is evil, like killing innocent people, we'll kill it." Sam takes a deep breath, considering what else to add. "We generally only get wind of the things that are out of control, like Wendigos, shapeshifters, or weres that're causing trouble. Or here, with the Thunderbird, some cattle mutilations and weird sightings, then the murder."
Sam is ticking off points in his head, knowing that there are some parts of this that he and his brother will not agree on, and parts that will hurt his friend. But, this is a legitimate question from someone who was willing to hand over all her research over to them. Seems like a fair exchange to him. And maybe he wouldn't mind impressing her a bit.
"If it's an evil god from some pantheon, we might try to kill it, but that's not easy to do – so we try banishing spells. Sent Osiris off to sleep for 200 years. I lost track of who killed what when a bunch of the old gods gathered in the Hotel California." Sam is still musing, trying to give her a fair idea of the rules they live by. Hmmm, if it's a baby evil thing, then no. We don't kill babies."
"No to Reapers, cause they're just doing their job, part of the natural order. Also no to things, like this one vamp nest we found where they didn't drink human blood."
"They were vegetarians," snorts Dean, deciding he'd weigh in too. "We have a few problem areas. One is witches. I mean most of them are people, so whenever possible it's best to let the police handle it. We don't need to end up in prison for ganking a witch….even if they're creepy and always spewing bodily fluids everywhere. Psychics, same thing. As long as they aren't killin' people with their brains we leave'em be. Hmmm, fairies, leprechauns, case by case. I did nuke a tinker-belle thing in the microwave once, but she was asking for it."
Mouth open, Bernie looks stunned, again. Dean, crooked grin in place, reminds her they have been doing this for a long time.
Sam clears his throat to get the pretty TA's attention again. He has come up with another example of the moral ambiguity. "Demons are a real problem. At first, we didn't realize they were just occupying human bodies – that sometimes the human is still in there and save-able. When possible, we try to exorcise the demon, but honestly, they are damned hard to fight. Really powerful. We are usually doing our best just to live through those encounters."
"I don't know," Dean says. "Sometimes lately we're a little stab-happy with the demons too. But I'm okay with that. Demons almost always mess things up for the people they ride. Occasionally we end up working with a demon for the 'greater good.' Or Cause their enemy is our enemy too. But demons'll lie just to lie." Dean shakes his head. "Sammy, you need to write this all down somewhere. Make it fit on the back of a business card."
Before Dean can get the subject completely off track, Bernie intervenes. "This really is fascinating to me, really. What you do. How casually you can talk about it. It's astounding. In the histories, we try to keep up with confirmed kills, and types of creatures involved, but we don't have complete records on your dad, Bobby Singer, or you two. I would love to write it all down for you, be your scribe. Or your uncle would."
Dean snorts loudly. "None of this is easy to talk about. This last bunch we just cleaned up…" He starts digging through his pockets for his flask. Takes a swig under his brother's glower. "Stopped being easy when demons got involved – hell – I guess monster hunting's never been easy."
Cas is tense, and still, looking out the window; as the monster in the car, he's uncomfortable with the conversation and he doesn't like how Dean has been looking at this woman. "There is a series of books called Supernatural by a Carver Edlund that you could reference," he gets out before Dean cuts him off.
"Sonofabitch, not them. – Cas, don't tell her about them," Dean is squirming uncomfortably.
"But she seems to be trying to figure your history."
"Dammit, Cas, they're embarrassing. We don't talk about them." Dean turns around and bangs his head – carefully as to not hurt his baby – on the steering wheel. Winces when he remembers he has fresh stitches.
"I don't understand. Popular fiction novels?" She is confused and looks it.
"Like people would believe any of it?" Sam cuts in.
"Carver Edlund is a pen name for the Prophet Chuck Shurley. The Winchester Gospels are based on the five years leading up to the Second Apocalypse," Cas explains. Dean interrupts again.
"It's not all true. He made some of that up." Dean is whining, and then he hisses at Cas. "Not them…Cas, it's embarrassing. I'm full frontal in them."
Sam is enjoying Dean's discomfort about the books. He has his best shit-eating grin on his face. "What was that word you used yesterday, bro?" He quirks his eyebrow. "Was that - payback?" Sam teases. But it is what Castiel says next that makes Dean's face blush bright red and reduces Sam to guffaws.
Castiel purses his lips. His eyes are blue steel and intent, giving Dean a measuring look. He captures the summer green eyes that have widened in shock. Then pulls his gaze away to give a complete, slow, sweeping, purposefully eye-sexing look that doesn't spare Dean's modesty. "Full frontal, hmmm, maybe I should re-read them," Castiel licks his lips and lets his deep voice reach resonance. "I don't remember the, ah, descriptive details."
The temperature in the car goes up several degrees, and then drops abruptly as Dean's door opens. His voice sounds gruff and distant, "I'll be right back. Gotta take a leak." He escapes into the darkness.
Sam reaches for his forehead, rubbing at the furrow he finds there and realizing that it's his fault. He pushed him. Sam knows his brother well enough to know that things have been moving a little fast for him, and that it scares him.
A scared Dean Winchester can be, well, either scary or reckless. Sam sighs deeply because he helped tease Dean about it – the unnamed but growing more evident daily relationship between Dean and Cas - in front of a near stranger. Sam reaches out to catch Cas's shoulder, stopping him from going out after Dean. "Just give him a minute. He's regrouping."
Bernie looks at him questioningly. "It's just that this is so new to them." He explains as though they are alone in the car, and they may as well be for how turned inward the angel is at the moment.
Castiel thinks that he has just reacted with jealousy to Dean being mildly flirtatious. He struck out in anger at Dean, knowing he was embarrassing him. How much further can I fall? He wonders, wishing he could undo the last few minutes.
"Okay," Sam figures he and Cas can kick themselves later. Sam determinedly moves the conversation back on topic. "We've fought against the Deadly Sins, Jinns, the Whore of Babylon, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse… We beat them all, except Death. Long story, and more Dean's to share than mine."
"And angels, fallen angels, and those pushed out of heaven and thrown into the fiery pit," Castiel's voice is tired and pained. "And we've killed them, so I do not think it matters if your Thunderbird is some kind of winged servant of your gods." Cas's voice is almost too soft to hear. "It didn't matter when we killed my brothers."
The Impala's door creeks open again, and Dean climbs in shivering. "Goddamnit, it's cold out there." He smells like fresh air and bourbon. "Let's turn on some heat." With the car running, Dean looks around at the people in the car. "We done yet with the inquisition?" When no one answers, he nods. "I need my four hours, and I need my pain pill."
Cas takes a prescription bottle out of his pocket and shakes out a pill for Dean and two for him. He opens a bottle of water to swallow his, offering it to Dean after. Dean opens the flask to wash his down, but when Cas reaches for it, he turns it upside down to show it's empty.
Bernie clears her throat, realizing that the brief playful moment earlier was an anomaly for these grim men. "Sorry if this is just too nosy, but why're you taking narcotics?" Dean gives that fake chuckle and a wry grin.
"Well, I got my ass kicked pretty bad in San Antonio a few weeks ago and Cas gets these bad headaches." Dean looks over at Cas, and notices the obvious truth to that statement. He silently directs Sam's gaze too, quirking an eye brow. Sam looks concerned, but gives a small twist of his mouth and a shake of his head. He knows what got into Cas, but that's something those two will have to work out together.
"Have you ever tried more natural remedies for pain relief?" She asks, quickly jumping in to explain. "I have a friend who has an American Indian Church just north of the city. She does a lot to help people with pain management – our church – our religion – is more about being in balance with the natural and spiritual worlds." She's rushing her words a little. "I'd love to take you, if you'd like to try it."
Something bleeps on Dean's person radar, but he studies her face and can't figure out what has set off a bell with him. Dean shrugs and says maybe Cas and him will try that. Then without meaning to, he gives a huge yawn.
"Bernie, why don't you and Sam head back into town, Cas and I will split the watch here for the rest of the night. If that's okay with everyone…" he trails off. "You could take the camera and see if you can do your magic photo stuff – get us a clear shot, Sammy."
Dean wants her gone, and he throws his brother at her mercilessly. Maybe he'll stop being such a bitch if he gets laid. As Bernie and Sam gather their things to leave, Cas moves to the front seat – coffee thermos and two cups in hand.
The tin coffee cup offered to Dean as he stares out the front window is a peace offering and an apology in one, and after a tense moment Dean wraps his hands around the mug, letting his fingers graze Castiel's.
"I hate those books." Dean remarks idly, only half addressing the topic between them as the jeep's engine revs behind them, and Bernie and his brother disappear.
"I know." Of course Dean hated them. He was the hero in them.