Chapter 8


Dean froze at the sound of the shots, the flat crack of the long-range rifle and over that the distinctive booming fire of a shotgun, both instantly recognisable in the thin, still air. He felt the vampire's hand close around his arm and he sank down to the rough ground with Benny, stretching themselves out flat under the straggling undergrowth. They heard barking and baying, then yelps and cries as the bullets and shells found their targets until the mountainside was silent again.

They waited for a long time for any further sound, rising slowly and cautiously when they heard nothing more. Walking down and across the slope, following the direction the shots had come from, they found the skinwalker pack, bodies sprawled over rocks and fallen tree trunks, lying in the thick needle mat and across the narrow trail. Dean crouched beside a body, looking at the holes, entry and exit. He looked around at the others. Every single body had multiple wounds, heart and lungs and legs and head. He thought the leg shots had been made first.

"What the fuck?" He looked up at the vampire standing beside him.

"I told you, cher, this is what they do." Benny shrugged, his gaze moving around the blood-soaked ground.

"Nice." He straightened up and stepped over a body. "Guess we better keep a low profile."

"It would be best," the vampire agreed. He gestured downhill. "They'll follow the trail, we should get lower."

Dean nodded and they slid and slithered down the slope through the fallen needles, hands outstretched to slow their descent when gravity pulled a little harder and the surface steepened.

He could hear the sound of a stream, not big or fast, chuckling over rock and timber just ahead. They were near the bottom of one of the small valleys that ran down from the primary ridge when they heard the scream, both dropping instantly, staring into the forest as the piercing noise rose higher and higher, breaking finally, then starting again.

Benny shook his head vehemently at Dean's looked enquiry, reaching out to grab his arm as he wriggled forward.

"No."

Dean looked at the hand on his arm and back to the vampire. "I need to see."

He watched the vampire's mouth compress to a thin line, seeing the mix of aggravation and fear in the blue eyes that met his.

Benny's grip relaxed and fell away and they crawled through the undergrowth, slowly heading for the noise. They were upslope of the clearing, hidden beneath a rotting log, neither moving as they watched the scene in front of them. Three men stood around a creature, bound somehow to a stump near the centre. Dean couldn't make out what the creature was, it didn't have any recognisable features, the skin slick and moving continuously as the men prodded at it with long, sharp blades.

"C'mon, you can shift faster than that!" One of the men leaned in and thrust the blade into the creature, the body stiffening and the thin scream rising out from the hole in what must have been the head. "I heard you could do it in less than a minute."

Shifter, he thought, staring at them. The blades must be silver. He watched as the creature attempted to create a new shape, skin thickening, bones moving under it, the long striated muscles forming curves and planes, then another of the men stepped forward and gripped the creature's shoulder, slowly forcing the silver blade down through one side of the chest, the half-finished form falling away and the created skin dropping off with a moist splat onto the ground beside it. It could barely mewl at the agony now, much of its body mass lying in glistening piles around it.

The third man had been standing by the fire, and Dean saw the blade he held glowing red. His stomach lurched and he turned away as the man stepped away from the fire, holding the molten sword out and driving it into the creature's head, the sizzling hiss drowned out by the sharp shriek of the shifter.

He met Benny's gaze, the vampire's eyes filled with tacit empathy. In that moment, looking into the vampire's sympathetic face, he felt a wrench somewhere inside himself, something snapping, something breaking … he didn't know what it was but his nausea, his unwillingness to face what was happening disappeared abruptly and he turned back to the clearing, not watching the men and the shifter, scanning the area around them for what had to be there.

And they were. Leaning drunkenly against the broad trunk of a dead tree, two rifles and a shotgun, bags of ammunition, a couple of packs and a net bag, bulging and stretched, the contents unrecognisable at this distance. He began to edge backward from the log, seeing Benny's eyes widen in understanding, the vampire's face twisting in silent protest. He flashed him a cold, sharklike grin, easing himself back on his toes and hands, not even a rustle in the bracken fern signalling his progress as he crawled down the hill.

Between the loud exhortations and laughter of the men, and the continuous noise from the shifter, he didn't have to worry so much about silence as he made his way in a shallow semi-circle around the clearing. He was careful not to move the undergrowth. Movement was something most predators caught easily, their peripheral vision designed to track it. Men were no different. When he reached the other side of the broad trunk, he waited for a moment, breathing deeply to loosen the tension in his chest and shoulders and back, to oxygenate his blood for the next sixty seconds of action. He knew precisely where the shotgun lay, a Remington pump action, most likely full reloaded. He would have one shot at this, getting around the tree, getting the gun and taking them down. Just one.

Do you know how to run a battle? You strike fast and you don't leave any survivors. So no one can go running to tell the boss.

Oh yeah, bitch, no survivors comin' out of this battle, he thought, unaware that the cold grin was still stretching out his mouth. None at all.

He swung around the trunk and his hand closed on the shotgun without hesitation, the barrel swinging up and his finger finding the trigger in one smooth movement.

The man holding the still-glowing sword went down first, chest pulverised by the suspended buckshot at less than ten feet range; Dean pumped the slide and fired again, the second shell hitting the man behind the shifter, his expression shocked as he fell with half his face missing. The third man ran straight at him, long silver blade swinging at his head as he closed the distance before Dean could get another round into the barrel. He lifted the gun and swung it sharply, knocking the blade away, reversing the barrel as the man stumbled slightly at the change in balance, and jabbing hard at the man's jaw with the butt of the stock, the crack from the solid timber against bone echoing softly in the clearing. He watched the man's eyes roll up as consciousness disappeared, and leaned over, plucking the blade from the man's hand and centring the point over his ribs. Thrusting it down through the ribs, slightly to left of the sternum, he twisted the hilt sharply, seeing blood trickle out of the man's mouth as the chest cavity filled.

He looked around the clearing. The men lay where they'd fallen, graceless in death as they'd been in life, and he noticed that one had a small medallion around his neck. The sight, unremarkable, ordinary even, brought home to him what he'd just done.

Humans. And he'd killed them, without thought, without feeling, without the slightest hesitation or remorse. His gaze moved to the shifter, slowly turning into the man who lay behind him, eyes staring around at the dead at its feet.

"Th-th-thank-y-y-y-ou –" It stammered out slowly as the vocal chords formed in its throat.

Dean looked at it, and his fingers tightened around the hilt of the silver blade. He took a long stride to the stump and swung the slim sword one-handed, the shifter's head flying off to one side, its thanks unfinished. He thrust the sword into the creature's chest, feeling the point break through the still-soft bones and into the heart, the body becoming rigid at the entry of the silver.

"I didn't kill them for you," he said, very softly, to the body. Behind him, Benny cleared his throat.

Dean looked over his shoulder at the vampire, then at the equipment dump beside the tree. "We can use some of this stuff."


In the end, they took one of the rifles and the shotgun, the ammunition for both and dismantled and scattered or buried the rest. The thought of the monsters here having access to the weapons was frightening, but letting the humans find them again would be far worse.

The netting bag had been full of severed heads, a fact for which Dean had only been able to raise a passing curiosity.

"I thought the monsters disappeared when they died, and ended up somewhere else?" he asked Benny, looking over the bag.

"Usually, they do." Benny looked down at the bag, a flicker of distaste crossing his face. "I don't know what these people do, but whatever they take, it doesn't come back."

"The guns?" Dean frowned, reaching out and turning one head to the side, looking at the black hole between the glazed eyes.

"I don't know," Benny admitted. "Possibly. The monsters you killed with your knife may also be gone for good."

Dean straightened up, looking around thoughtfully. Maybe. Left to themselves, the monsters here just tore each other apart, even their crude weapons could only disable, stun, had no hope of killing.

"Well, that's handy to know," he shrugged, slipping the strap of the Winchester over his shoulder and slinging the pack onto his back. "To someone."

He turned away from the bag and headed through the trees, following the narrow trail that the humans had come down, and Benny looked down at the bag once more before following him.

Dean felt as if he was lightly encased in ice, cold and empty and emotionless, his mind clear and as transparent as a pane of glass. On some level, he knew that it wasn't a good thing to feel so utterly disconnected, so completely indifferent, knew that he needed to feel something about what he was doing, or there would be no boundaries at all to his actions, but he didn't want to look at it that closely. He walked fast, a sharp spring in his step, every part of him working smoothly, precisely as it should, ready to do what he wanted. He could feel his concentration, narrowed and acute, and he felt easy, contradictorily relaxed in spite of the hair-trigger alertness. Or perhaps because of it.

He could feel the vampire following behind him, following him wherever he led, without questioning him, without arguing … Sam had never done that. Never just followed without having a fight about it first. Not with their father. Not with him. Sam had wanted to have input into everything, had believed – the thought was scraping at him, at the smooth, icy wall that surrounded him and he thrust it away impatiently. Sam wasn't here.

No one was here. No one who would care what he did or how he did it. The thought was both chilling and liberating.

His hand was curled loosely around the stock of the rifle over his shoulder, keeping it from bouncing against his back as he increased his pace again, striding out along the trail. The vampire didn't protest, just lengthened his stride and followed.

The scope alone was worth it, Dean thought, and if he could pick them off from a distance, the odds of actually succeeding improved dramatically. He hadn't been able to see their numbers, from the top of the peak. But the number of shelters, the size of the place spoke to more than a couple of dozen. And all of them apparently expert hunters. He wondered incuriously how well they would fare with no firepower, just their wits and strength to keep them alive out in monster-land.

How had they killed the leviathan? That really was a good question. He hadn't seen them here but Benny had said that they were big, car-sized, creatures that were something of a cross between a tarantula – giant, economy-sized, naturally – and a velociraptor. Intelligent, fast moving, voracious. Even with guns, you'd have to be good, you'd have to be very good.

He put the thought aside. He'd know more when they could see the place. Getting in was going to be the trick. He had a couple of ideas, both of which depended on what he saw of the people in there, and whatever kind of chain of command they had, and on the vampire's agreement. Neither were particularly safe for Benny. He could, he thought, leave the vampire out of it altogether, walk in on his own. That would be safer, probably for both of them.

Wait and see, he counselled himself softly. The best plan always became obvious once the full details were known.

The three he'd killed had been more like mercs than soldiers – or hunters – he thought. Undisciplined. Careless of who heard or saw them. Leaving their weapons out of reach. Were they all like that? Or the majority? If so, it would make it easier for him. Easier to create a diversion, to get in, get Cas and get out again. He looked down, a rueful smile lifting one side of his mouth. It wouldn't be that easy because it never was. Someone had planned this; someone was looking to get something out of it. The mercs might be the hired guns, but he thought they were probably all disposable as well. Just muscle.


They kept their distance from the plateau, traversing the flank of the mountain and climbing the other side of the peak. The forest was dense and dark, the trees tall, old, a mixture of spruce and pine, hemlock and fir and cedar, the trunks straight and clean, and the undergrowth stunted and struggling in the dim light. Beside the steep rocky fall of a small stream, they could get close enough to the upper canopy to jump from rock to tree, and they settled themselves along the thick branches, Dean adjusting the scope as he found the camp.

The details leapt at him through the high magnification lens. The larger building was a simple log hut, a single room by the looks of it, whole log and caulked with mud and earth. Surrounding it on three sides, much simpler lean-tos had been thatched with thick twiggy branches, to keep the occasional storm and rain showers out of the interiors. In between and surrounding the perimeter, fires burned, the flames almost invisible in the flat grey light. No walls, no ditches, he thought. Not afraid of whatever might come in the hours of darkness.

He moved the rifle incrementally across the camp, and stopped a moment later, a smile tugging at his mouth. Yeah, well that would explain the lack of fortification. A low embankment had been dug, and along the top were a number of guns. Ugly, graceless guns with big bores and very high mag scopes, box magazines protruding from underneath of the barrel, the size of them indicating the round calibre they took. He recognised a Steyr single shot, a McMillan semi and a Barrett semi among them. With high explosive, incendiary, armour-piercing rounds, they could take out anything at a range of fifteen to sixteen hundred yards, well out of the compound. And, he considered thoughtfully, if the solid slug was replaced by a boron compound, they would light up the levis and take them down without the slightest problem. He nodded to himself, satisfied with the answer to one question at least.

He adjusted the angle of the barrel, the scope lifting slowly. Above the gun battery, a small rise came into his view. On the top of it, a timber frame had been built, pegged together and braced to the front and back. Dean's brows drew together as he adjusted the focus again, bringing the figure lashed to the frame into shocking detail.

Castiel.

The angel's feet were on a small ledge built into the frame two feet from the ground. His arms were stretched out in a cruciform, lashed tightly to the cross-bar of the frame. His head hung, resting against his shoulder, the trenchcoat ragged and torn, bleached out in some places, stained in others.

Twelve days.

The smooth ice wall threatened to crack and he pulled back from the sight, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, forcing the growing emotion back and down.

I don't feel anything. This is just a guy, just a guy we have to get out of there, I don't know him, I don't feel anything. He's just the job. Just the job. I don't know him. I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything. I don't feel.

From the branch below, Benny looked up, seeing sweat beading on the man's forehead, seeing the taut features and white-knuckled fists.

"You found him?"

I don't feel. I don't feel. Just the job. I don't feel.

He dragged in a deep breath, opening his eyes and relaxing his hands.

"Yeah. I found him," he said, his voice thick and hard. He looked down at the vampire. "We've got enough time till dusk."

"Enough time for what?"

"Enough time for you to learn how this thing works. Get up here," Dean said tightly, moving away from the rifle. Benny looked at him and then the gun, rolling onto his feet.

"I can shoot, Dean, but this … you need to use it."

Dean shook his head. "You're going to learn, bro. It's not easy, but nothing is, right?"


He showed Benny how to adjust the scope, how to adjust the sight. He showed him the small cluster of foliage, high on the tree halfway between their position and the camp that he'd chosen as a wind flag. Showed him how to pull back slowly on the trigger, smooth and slow, so that no jerk could fuck up his aim. Showed him how to load the box magazine that held five rounds, and how to work the rotary bolt. They couldn't shoot – Benny would have to adjust everything, including himself, once Dean gave the signal. But he could feel the point where the trigger released, could see the movement of that little cluster of needles, and knew how much breeze it took to move them, and how they bent this way and that depending on the direction.

He looked at Dean worriedly when they felt the light beginning to dim. "What if I don't hit any of them?"

"Then I'll leave your useless ass here when I go," Dean grinned at him, the smile not reaching his eyes. "You'll be okay. The first shot's easy. I figure that hut to the right of the building is their primary ammo dump. You keep pumping shots into that until it goes up. By that time, you should have some sort of feel for the gun, for the distance."

"We could wait until dark; I could go with you –"

"No." Dean turned away, looking at the rocky outcropping a few feet away. "I'm getting him now. We're getting out of here now."

"That may not –" Benny tried again.

"It'll work," Dean said softly. "This time, it'll work out."

He jumped from the branch to the rock, catching hold of the top and half-sliding down the rough face to the stream's edge. Benny looked down as he started to walk away.


Dean froze against the thick bole of the tree, shedding thought and awareness, emptying himself completely. He wasn't in direct view of the two perimeter guards, but was visible enough, if he caught their attention.

Claude Montrissier had been in country with his father, in 1972, and had returned home whole on the outside, but not so much on the inside. He had lived in Louisiana, and had eked out a living carving wood into fantastical sculptures, selling them in Lafayette from time to time. John Winchester had gone to him a few years after his life had been destroyed by a demon, looking for a connection between the demon's Louisiana's visits and the deaths that had followed them, and an old man who'd lived nearby. Claude had known all about it, and they'd taken the witch down together. Years later, he'd taken Dean down to meet the Marine-turned-hunter, and Dean had spent three months with Claude, learning about voodoo and hoodoo, about the Louisiana practices and the Haitian counterparts, about Baron Samedi and raising the dead. And he'd learned about hiding himself in plain sight.

"You got to let everything go, man, let it dissolve and disappear," Claude had said to him, the dark eyes sparkling with a humour that wasn't always friendly. "Be the tree. Be the earth. Be the grass and the insects and the air and the leaves. Not you. Not yourself. Just everything around you."

He'd thought that was a load of crap, but he'd tried to follow the old man's instructions, blocking out the thoughts that had repeatedly popped into his head, blocking out the sharp sting of the insects that were feeding on him in the warm purple dusk, blocking out the sudden fear as he heard the deep breathing of Claude's dog, Muerte, and the clink of the dog's chain being released.

Muerte was an Anatolian/Rottweiler cross of uncertain bloodlines. He stood hip high to a man at the shoulder, and was slightly over two foot across the chest. His misshapen head was almost all jaws, huge, blunt, powerful jaws with big, sharp teeth filling them. Claude had introduced him to the dog when he'd first arrived, telling him to stay clear of it. Muerte had no sense of play, no sense of humour, just a hyper-strong territorial instinct and a perpetual hunger for fresh meat.

He shunted the sudden anger at the man aside and froze, clearing his head, clearing everything as he heard the dog's heavy steps moving toward him through the almost-darkness. From across the yard, he heard Claude's low chuckle.

"Now we see, eh, Dean? If you have learned the lesson."

He'd ignored the jibe and let everything go, feeling himself become transparent and then not there at all. And the dog had gone past him, paying him no more attention than he had any other tree in the yard.

It had been the hardest fifteen minutes of his life, but it had taught him that it was possible. Possible to disappear, to not-exist, to draw the attention of none.

The guards walked past, their eyes sliding over him without recognition, without pause, and they continued on down the trail, scanning the forest, for any movement, any hint of intruders.

His mouth lifted slightly on one side as he watched them move away, disappearing around the next bend in the trail. Then he stepped away from the tree and continued toward the camp.


He walked up the well-marked path to the plateau openly, not a hundred percent sure it was the best course of action, that he wouldn't be shot on sight. His instincts told him that coming here, an unarmed human, was going to be the easiest way to get in, the easiest way to get what he needed. The back of his neck was prickling slightly, as he saw two men turn toward him, their guns rising and pointing at him, their pace increasing as they hurried over, but he thought that was just normal caution, alone and in the midst of enemies.

"Who the hell are you?" The first man stared at him, gaze dropping and slowly rising again as he took in the filthy and torn clothing, lingering slightly on the axe in his hand.

"Dean Winchester," he said, smiling slightly. "Human. Glad to see you guys."

The second man's eyes narrowed. "How'd you get past the perimeter guards?"

Dean shrugged, turning his head to look at him. "Didn't see anyone else."

The men exchanged a slightly worried look, then the first jerked his head toward the camp. "Get moving, you need to see the Colonel."

Colonel? He looked at the guns held by the men, both M16s, standard issue assault rifles for the US army, in the late sixties, early seventies. What the fuck?

They flanked him as he walked into the camp, one to his right, and the other behind him, weapons still pointed at him, although their grips on the guns had relaxed. He looked around curiously.

The compound had been laid out in a standard military pattern, in zones of protection, with the log building and two other robust shelters at the centre. Most of those moving around the camp were men, wearing varying mixes of civilian and military clothing, all carrying guns of one sort or another, holstered at their hips, or flat against their ribs, or slung over a shoulder or chest. None of the guns were more recent than the seventies, he thought, and all seemed to be standard military issue for that time.

They stopped in front of the hut that stood to the left of the log building, and Dean felt the barrel of the M16 press into his back as the man behind him stepped close, and the other knocked on the door.

The door opened and a man walked out, pale blue eyes raking over the men in front of him, then shifting abruptly to the man beside him.

"Simpson," he barked the name out crisply enough but it didn't hide the west Texan drawl.

"Sir, this man walked just walked in camp," Simpson straightened slightly, glancing at Dean. "Said he didn't encounter the perimeter guards."

Dean looked back at the older man's face impassively. Six foot one, maybe two inches, he held himself with a strict military bearing. Career soldier, been in the game for decades, he decided. He was in uniform, the khaki almost faded out to white but clean, the patches and tears mended carefully. The face was square, a cleft chin, smooth from regular shaving, the eyes like gimlets, examining him with nothing to show in the expression of what he was thinking.

Tough old bird.

"What's your name, son?" The Colonel's voice was deep, the drawl a little more pronounced.

"Dean Winchester."

"Winchester, like the gun?"

"Like the gun," Dean agreed readily. "What is this place?"

He felt the barrel jab into his back and half-turned. The Colonel cut through the barely formed intention sharply.

"Just for now, son, we'll ask the questions. How'd you come to be here?"

Dean turned back to him. "I have no idea. One minute I was hunting a bear with my brother, in the Black Hills reserve, the next I was in the middle of a forest and fighting for my life."

The Colonel stared at him, then nodded slowly. "Happens sometimes, if you get too close to something that's dying."

He glanced at Simpson for a moment, then back to Dean. "Well, son, welcome to Purgatory."

Dean frowned at him. "What?"

The barrel jabbed him in the back again. "Mind your manners, boy."

"Take it easy, Franklin, it's a big shock coming here," the Colonel said easily, stepping out away from the hut. "You must be fairly good, Winchester, to still be alive."

Dean looked at him, turning a little to face him. "I've seen … what is this place?"

"The last resting place for the unnatural and the undead. Saw a few already, haven't you?" The man nodded again. "Kind of shocking, but you get used to it."

He glanced at Franklin. "Get the testing gear, Franklin. We'll just check out Mr Winchester and then you can return to your posts."

Dean watched Franklin walk to the log building. "Testing?"

"We need to make sure you're all human, son." He turned to look at him. "A lot of things look human here, but aren't. We test everyone, doesn't hurt much and it sets everyone's mind at ease."

Silver, iron, salt, Dean thought, keeping his face expressionless as Franklin returned with a roll of cloth in one hand.

"Sir." He slung the rifle over his shoulder and unrolled the cloth, spreading it out across his forearm.

"Hold out your arm, son, and it'll be over in a minute." The Colonel picked up a slender silver knife and waited. Dean pushed up his sleeve and held his arm out, wincing a little at the sting of the blade slicing into his skin. He saw the Colonel take note of his reaction.

"Red and warm. Good." The Colonel put the knife back onto the roll and lifted a bottle. Dean read the handwritten label. Borax. He winced a little more as the liquid spilled over the wound.

"Antiseptic as well as a good indication of certain kinds of things living here." He lifted a second knife, this one longer, the metal darker. "Last one, hold still."

The knife was iron, Dean thought, watching the Colonel adjust his grip on the hilt. He sensed movement behind him, and started to turn when Simpson grabbed his arms, pinning them tightly behind him, and the Colonel pushed the blade into his side slowly, angled upwards under his ribs.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He looked down at the knife, face twisting as the pain hit him, the cold blade deep inside him.

"Some creatures need iron to kill them." The man pulled the knife out and wiped it clean. "You've been here a while, Winchester. That's not fatal. You'll be fine in the morning."

Dean felt his knees buckling slightly and Simpson held him up. Shock, he thought, let it wash through, don't fight it. The sonofabitch was right; he would be fine in the morning. He didn't feel fine right fucking now.

"Simpson, getting a dressing on that, make sure he doesn't bleed out. He's human," the Colonel said, smiling slightly at Dean, "and we can always use another human."

"Come on," Simpson said brusquely, releasing him. "Get you patched up."

"Bring him back here." The Colonel looked at Dean appraisingly. "We'll take the tour, and I'll fill you in on what we're doing."

Repressing the impulse to smash his fist into the older man's face, Dean managed a nod and turned away, staggering a little as the hole in his side bit deeply, sending rods of pain down to his knees.

Psychos. Fucking psycho. It didn't help to know that in the same position he might have done the same thing. There was so much that was completely off about the place, about the man, that he didn't know where to start.

"He's a tough guy, the Colonel, but he knows what he's doing," Simpson said to him when they walked into the building. "Siddown. He's kept us alive all this time."

Dean closed his eyes. "How long have you been here?"

He felt the cold touch of alcohol on his skin, acid-etching into the wound. Simpson discarded the swabs and tore open a sterilised dressing, taping it firmly over the cut.

"Who knows? All our watches stopped when we came through, there's no way of telling the seasons or anything, nothing like that changes." He shrugged, turning back to the table to put the first aid kit away. "I kept count for a while, you know, the days, but it seemed pointless and I stopped."

Dean stood up, the dressing pulling a little on his skin as he moved. "Do you remember the year you came here?"

"Oh yeah, sure. 1978." Simpson gestured to the door. "Colonel's waiting for you, get going."

1978. Thirty four years. Dean walked out of the building, Simpson behind him. "How'd you come to be a part of this?" He gestured around them.

"Volunteered," Simpson said, moving up beside him. "Just finished my third tour in 'Nam and I didn't want to go back. This project came up and they asked for volunteers and here I am."

"This is a military project?" Dean asked, trying to keep the shock off his face.

"Yeah, classified up the wazoo, but once you're here, it's not like you can tell anyone, right?" Simpson grinned at him. "Colonel'll explain it. We've had maybe three or four guys like you, most of them come in shell-shocked as hell, and barely alive. Like the Hotel California, man, you check in any time you like, but you can't ever leave."

Dean checked the frown forming at that. Someone here knew how to leave. Benny had found the spell in one of their books.

"Simpson, return to your post. Tell Morris and Sweeney to find whoever's on perimeter today, and bring them in. A week in the hole might help them to remember how to do their jobs."

Simpson's face paled a little as he nodded and swung away.

"The hole?" Dean watched the man striding away, and turned back to the Colonel.

"Our equivalent of the stockade," the Colonel said, gesturing for him to move. "Some of the men here aren't as disciplined as mine, had to take what I could get at the time, so we needed a reminder for them."

"Uh huh." Dean walked beside the older man. "So what is this?"

"Project Acheron." He turned to look at Dean. "Acheron was the river in –"

"Greek myth that Charon ferried the dead across to Hades, yeah, I know the story," Dean said impatiently.

"Do you now?" the Colonel said thoughtfully and Dean wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "What you've seen here, what you've fought, are the souls of the monsters that roam topside, on Earth."

"Monsters?"

The Colonel smiled thinly. "Sounds fantastic, but it's true. Government's been trying to keep a lid on it for a long time now, since Hoover first took over the Bureau."

They came to the embankment holding the tank guns. "The first beasts here were Leviathan, according to the Bible. God built Purgatory to hold them, keep them from escaping and destroying the Earth." He waved a hand at the guns. "These do the trick too. Nasty things, Leviathan. Almost impossible to kill. Almost."

Dean looked at the bottom of the embankment, a deep ditch, filled with huge, dark bodies, in various stages of decomposition. The bones were yellow, oily looking in the flat grey light. Bone of the first beast. No problem.

"And you're here to what? Kill all of these?" He looked up the hill, to the frame on which the angel was suspended.

"No. We're actually here to find a doorway to another universe," the Colonel said mildly, following his gaze up. "Funding for the space program was getting reduced, usual story, Congress with its head up its ass, and the population wasn't getting smaller by any means. We're tasked with finding a place where we can expand, explore new frontiers."

Dean felt his brows rising. "Another universe? Any luck with that?"

The Colonel laughed. "Oh hell, son, this is just base camp. We've found three and sent through our boys to check 'em out." He turned to look at Dean. "How long have you been here?"

"I'm not sure, maybe ten months? A year?" He looked back at Castiel. "What'd he do?"

"Only a year?" The Colonel's eyes narrowed as he studied him. "What year was it when you got sucked down here?"

"2012."

The information shocked him, Dean could see it in the man's eyes, despite the tight control he had over his face and body. Had he really not known of how long he'd been down here, doing his duty for his country and being left behind, forgotten about or buried?

The Colonel turned his head slowly, looking up at the frame on the top of the small hill. "He's … uh … bait, really. For the Leviathan. They keep coming up here trying to get him. We saw them hunting him a while ago. Saves us the trouble of hunting for them, when they all come here."

"He's human?"

"God, no," the Colonel said, looking away. "Not sure what he is, to be frank, but he's not human."

Dean turned away from the hill and the angel. "So, all the men here are US soldiers?"

The Colonel shook his head. "No. Couldn't get more'n a dozen volunteers. We've got a fair percentage of hired help here."

"Hired?" Dean slid a sideways look at him. "Not much to spend your cash on around here."

The older man's gaze sharpened on him. "No. Army's paying into their accounts, they'll have plenty when we get the order to go home."

Dean nodded, looked across at the line of shelters. In the shade of one, two women were sitting, bent over something in their laps. He frowned. "You brought wives along on this tour?"

"No," the Colonel said abruptly. "More like camp followers, the women here."

Dean lifted a brow at him. "Stumbled through from Earth?"

The man's expression hardened. "Told you a lot of monsters here look human. The men have needs. And some monsters can be … kept from changing, kept under control."

Dean looked back at the women as they walked closer to the shelters. Both looked up and he saw the collars, iron or silver or some other kind of metal. He hazarded a guess that they were sirens, although he couldn't imagine how the collars would bind them.

As if following his thoughts, the Colonel said, "They know they'll die if they try anything. They're sirens, can change themselves to whatever is most desirable to a man."

Charming. Dean wondered if the men themselves knew the truth about the monsters they were screwing. Maybe. Maybe not. From what he'd seen none of them would've cared.

They stopped in front of the log building and Dean glanced at the hut to the right. The Colonel saw the direction of the look and turned toward it, gesturing. "Our stores. We brought a lot of stuff that it turned out we didn't need. But we've got plenty of ordnance here, enough to keep hunting the monsters and putting them down."

He pushed the door open and Dean looked at the inside of the single room, stacked to the ceiling with boxes and crates and bag of weapons, ammunition, grenades, mines and more esoteric weaponry.

"Quite a selection," he said, the side of his mouth lifting as he looked at the Colonel.

The other man smiled back. "Weren't sure what we needed, so we brought everything."

Dean laughed softly. It would go up like a fucking nuclear bomb when Benny hit it, he thought. Give him more than enough time to get Cas, get one of the big guns and the bone and get the hell out of Dodge.

"So, you've seen our setup," the Colonel said, closing the door. "You going to throw in with us?"

Dean looked around the compound. "As opposed to running and fighting for my life out there, sure. Of course."

"Good!" The Colonel clapped a hand on his shoulder, and Dean clenched his teeth against the desire to pull his knife and plunge into the older man's heart. A bit more time, just a bit, and he'd do it, gladly.

They both turned at the noise coming from the path off the plateau, shouting and a deep guttural snarling.

"What's going on?" Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the detail of the party that was walking up toward them.

"Sent out a group this morning, some of our boys didn't come home from a hunt yesterday and we found them, all shot up and dead." The Colonel watched the group as well. "I'd say that they found the murdering monster that did it. Good timing too, men have been hankering for something different for a while, they can get rid of that dissatisfaction now."

Dean watched as the group got closer, something bound and struggling in their midst. He couldn't see what they were half-carrying, half-dragging through the dirt of the compound, the creature covered in blood and dirt. The back of his neck prickled insistently.

He followed the Colonel as he walked toward them, the group stopping when they saw their leader, kicking at the figure lying on the ground, bound up in heavy iron chain from shoulders to knees.

"Got him, sir. He had the guns and the ammo." The soldier stood straight, his faded uniform rent with claw marks, and reddened with blood.

"What is it?"

"Vampire, sir. Took all of us to get him. We lost Tyree and Hutchinson, sir."

"Well, string him up," the Colonel said, lip curling slightly in distaste. "No wagering on how long he lasts, Mitch. We're still soldiers, not barbarians."

"No, sir."

Dean stared down at the vampire, unrecognisable as he lay in the dirt. Then Benny lifted his head and the blue eyes met his as the soldiers dragged him to the back of the camp.