"Walt, you are high class dumbass, you know that? If you had just bothered to listen for five seconds you would have learned that we can't use the dead blood! YOU MORON!" Dean screamed at his former killer (if that's even a thing). "Now we have nothing to use against the leviathans. Just because there aren't that many left doesn't mean that they still can't take out a couple of cities, because beheading isn't exactly permanent, and SOMEONE killed the Alpha even as we said 'no' 'stop' 'we need him alive.'
"Well excuse me for not knowing what kind of blood you wanted. Better than starting the apocalypse, anyways!" retorted Walt, causing slight alarm for Henry.
"No one could have known that ganking a demon would let Satan out of his box." Dean bit back, glancing in concern toward Sam, who kept his gaze on the ground.
"Yes, of course, because when your brother's demon girlfriend says something will stop her daddy from jumping out of the Pit, you believe her because apparently demons don't lie anymore."
"ENOUGH!" Henry yelled. "Look, I don't know what any of you have to do with all the crap that went on 'bout three years ago, and I'm not sure I want to. But you seem to be forgetting that now that the bone is useless we should stop screaming at each other long enough to come up with another plan."
Speaking of the bone, Shawn's taking a long time to find one from that tomb. He glanced at his cell phone. Shawn hadn't left any messages nor had he tried to call. This would be normal for any other case, knowing Shawn as well as he did, and he would normally dismiss it.
But leviathans were loose in Santa Barbara. This was no ordinary case.
Shawn and Jody stared in shocked silence at the two men blocking the exit of the tomb, gaping as they opened their mouths to reveal layers of sharp teeth, intended for the ripping of warm flesh. Their ears rang with terror from their synchronised roar. One glance at Jody's face told Shawn she had seen this before, but all the same her fear was every bit as real as his. He searched frantically for a weapon. Nothing. The only thing that could be remotely considered as a weapon was the bone in his hand, and without having been washed in the "blood of the three fallen," it was useless.
But they didn't know that.
Behind his back he wiped the bone of as best as he could, then used it to slice hard into his left arm, and felt warm blood spilling down his skin. He used it to coat the bone. It may be useless, but it was a good bluff.
"Hold it right there." He held the bone threateningly in the faces of their attackers. They flinched; they knew what it was supposed to be. He carefully hid his bloody arm behind his back, pressing it to his shirt to stop to the bleeding. It wouldn't be long before they smelled what it really was; the rotting corpses in the tomb couldn't mask the smell of fresh human blood forever, but it would buy enough time to think of a plan.
Hopefully.
From the corner of his eye he could see Jody fingering her cell phone's keypad behind her back (Didn't James run over hers? Maybe she borrowed it.). Whoever she was calling would need to know where they were. "So tell me, what brings a pair of fish to the holy boneyard?" Not that specific, but there was only one nun cemetery in Santa Barbara that he could think of.
"I mean, I guess I should be asking what brings you to Santa Barbara, or, heck, the planet. Whatever. It doesn't matter. I'd just like to know about the factory massacre. What do you get out of interrupting a gang war to kill of some innocent civilians, hmmm?" If Jody had called the police instead of his dad and the others, he would need to get them interested enough to get down here. All they would need is a few seconds as a distraction, and they could all escape. No one had to get hurt.
Nonetheless, he still prayed she called the Winchesters. While Lassie's face would be entertaining, he didn't want to have someone on this particular case that had no idea what they were doing. Heck, he didn't know what he was doing.
"Not much of a hunter, are you?" The taller one clad in a red jacket chuckled.
"Meh, I make it up as I go. Now spill it." He sang as he waved the bone around. That was risky, he realized. Wafting the smell of human blood would only shorten his borrowed time.
"It doesn't matter what you do with that bone." snorted the short one. "Killing two will not stop us. You see, Dick had it all wrong. We are more powerful than he ever was. You think it matters that our numbers are lower now without him? Ha. Not for long."
Not for long he had said. A bluff? He couldn't take the chance that it wasn't. He remembered with a start another point: they had said killing the two. The bone can't kill two, even if it was real. Were they really ignorant or just pretending? And how many bones could they make with one Alpha? If their numbers really were increasing, Shawn feared that draining one Alpha wouldn't be enough. Hopefully they could regenerate blood.
He faltered for a second while he thought, the bone coming down by a mere fraction of an inch. The tall one smirked a little, convinced he was winning, but it was the short one that finally got it. Sniffing his nose in the air, he scowled. "Hey Rob, smell that?"
"Rob" took a good whiff of the smell of Shawn's blood while said pseudo-psychic watched his plan fall apart before him. He had hoping they wouldn't notice it that soon.
The bone was useless, and now they knew it.
"Lassiter, have you heard from Shawn yet?" Gus asked as he followed the detective around while he paced up and down the hallway.
"Gus, Shawn might act like a child, but he is his own keeper. He's fine." He really didn't have time for Gus's questions. What was he going to say? "I think your best friend is with a pair of serial killers who may not really be serial killers but hunters of demons and monsters. Oh, and the King of Hell is out for their hides so Shawn may or may not be dead along with his father who is also a creature hunter." The day had already been crazy enough. Repeating it to try to make it seem rational was just insane.
"He missed the peanut vendor, Lassiter. The PEANUT VENDOR! And I had to throw out his pineapple pie because it was left out for the flies. The day Shawn lets anything pineapple-related rot is the day Hell freezes over!"
"You know, the deepest parts of Hell are in fact frozen over. They say Lucifer burns hot but it's really quite the opposite." A Scottish accented man in a suit appeared from thin air behind Gus, causing him to jump a foot in the air. Lassiter didn't need him to flash his eyes - he really did not need that, not today or ever - to know who it was.
"Crowley." He growled. The entire station froze around him; at least, everyone that had been at the hotel to meet him the first time. Vick was confused, but she had heard the whisperings in the station. She never thought she believed in the supernatural, but her blood ran cold upon hearing the name.
"Hello. What can I do ya for?" He paused. "Right, you didn't call, I came here. Whatever. Found the Winchester boys, thanks for asking" he remarked sarcastically.
"What do you want here, Crowley?" In his mind Lassiter began thinking of every possible way to get this guy under a Devil's Trap - but he found no solution that didn't get someone killed.
"A favour that is not a favour."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I want you to help exterminate what remains of the leviathan race once and for all. That's the favour. To do that you need to ally with the Winchesters. I hate the Winchesters. They stole my prophet and their angel screwed me over. So that's the not-a-favour. Did you get that, or should I write it down and shove it between your ears?"
"And if we don't?"
"Then you will receive a repeat performance of what happened at the hunting lodge, in addition to being eaten by the things you morons don't want to kill. See? The deal is of mutual benefit to us both and you don't even have to sell your soul and seal it with a kiss. Once in a lifetime offer if you ask me." Hardly anyone besides the Supernatural readers got that.
Vick stared at Lassiter in confusion and astonishment. "You are not seriously considering this." she said in low, firm voice. When Lassiter only shrugged, she added "Consorting with serial killers and someone equally as crazy as them? Over a biblical sea whale? Are you out of your mind?"
"Anyone who was at the hotel today can tell you that we have no other choice." Even as he said it, he could see several officers trembling in terror. "Remember Officer Renly? The one that broke his neck at the hotel by supposedly walking into a wall? He is what happens when you stand up to these things without weapons or a plan. We're not hunters, so we have neither."
Vick was about to retort that they were in a police station, where guns were plentiful and the plan was "shoot to stun and take in for questioning," when she could hear Jules faintly muttering behind her hand.
Exorcizamus te
omnis immundus spiritus
omnis satanica potestas
That's part of an old exorcism. But why?
She then noticed that "Crowley" looked a little uncomfortable. His eyes cut to Jules, who immediately stopped muttering. He sighed and flicked his hand. Jules found herself pinned against a pillar about three feet up, her faced twisted in pain and surprise. Gus, meanwhile, could only stand there, trying to convince himself that this was only a dream, that Shawn made him try some stupid combination of pineapple juice dumped in beans or something dumb and it was messing with his dreams.
"Let her go! We'll do it!" Lassiter yelled at the man that somehow held Jules against the pillar with no apparent force. He raised an eyebrow at Lassiter, who held his gaze. Then, another flick of the hand and Jules was slumped on the floor, out of breath and in shock, but otherwise unharmed. Vick was silent this time. Lassiter was right; without a weapon or a plan, they were out of options.
The demon smiled. "Alright, first things first."
Shawn and Jody found themselves once again staring into those many-layered mouths. Shawn found himself thinking back to James' description of them. "The freaky things with the teethy mouths." It didn't even come close.
Though Shawn's stroke of genius bought them time, it hadn't seemed to be enough. Whoever Jody had called behind her back either hadn't picked up or wasn't going to make it. He closed his eyes and silently prayed that they had pineapple in heaven.
No pineapple came, though, because when he opened his eyes he was still in the tomb. The screaming he heard was not his nor was it Jody's, but it was coming from their would-be predators.
"Aim for the eyes. That's where it will burn them the worst." Lassie? How did he know what to use? Nothing he could have heard over the phone could have told him to use borax, and the only hint of what he was even dealing with was a remark about a fish.
If Lassie-dog is a hunter like Dad I am going to explode.
"Sheriff, Shawn, go!" Without further hesitation Shawn grabbed the bone and followed Jody out of the crypt. Gus was there, too, holding a squirt gun. He almost laughed at how terrifying it was that Gus, the guy who fainted at a nosebleed, could make a squirt gun look that dangerous. He and Jody grabbed some spares and started shooting.
Rob had been subdued enough to capture. James muttered what sounded like a spell to sap his strength. As long as the spell was being uttered, the creature would remain weak, so no one disturbed him. By the time the short one recovered everyone had packed into the cars along with their prisoner and escaped.
Shawn told the Winchesters to meet them at the hotel, which the police roped until further notice for "investigative reasons" and banned any media coverage. When Shawn asked Vick how they knew to use borax against them, she explained that Crowley had drafted them to take out the leviathan, or suffer the consequences. After explaining what they were, where they came from (Castiel? Dean never mentioned that) and their weaknesses, he sent them to the boneyard to take a prisoner in for questioning, using James' spell to weaken it. This turned out to be a rescue mission when they discovered Shawn and the sheriff were there, for it had been the station Jody had called after all. They had been just in time; Shawn's ploy with the bone had been the difference between life and death.
When they reached the hall, they found that the Impala was already there. Shawn saw their grim expressions as he entered the meeting room. They couldn't stop the hunters, and the Alpha was dead.
Their makeshift hunting meeting was being attended by half of the SBPD, most of whom were merely observing rather than participating, ten hunters from the hotel, as the rest were on a job, the Winchesters, Gus, an angel, a sheriff, and the Spencers.
"Are you sure that there is no other weapon we can make?" asked Vick as she turned to Dean Winchester, the irony of the situation not lost on her. "The bone was it?" His only reply was a grim nod.
Shawn bit his lip. "I know we aren't exactly prepared for more bad news, but here it is." A universal gulp spread across the room. "Jody and I aren't sure, but we think they might be increasing their numbers. James put his spell on a loop to go check it out."
"When we were in the tomb," Jody hastened to explain, "one of them was telling Shawn that they were gaining more members. It was when he thought Shawn was able to kill him, so it could have just been a bluff. He said that they were closer than Dick ever was. Do you think that Operation Global Human Farm is back on track?"
Sam shook his head. "I dunno. I don't even know what we can do about it - if they weren't bluffing, that is. Why increase the numbers, though? It means less food for every leviathan. "
"Perhaps he - the new leader, that is - is trying to obtain power. It's not like he can't kill them off again later." suggested Henry.
"How do they kill each other?" asked Lassiter. "Maybe there's another way after all."
"They eat each other. Or order them to eat themselves." Dean answered simply.
"So we can just cut them up?"
"A wood chipper couldn't cut them up enough. We tried."
The police took a moment to be disturbed by the comment, along with the conversation in general. Gus wasn't listening much; he was busy wondering about Shawn. On the outside it appeared that he was taking all of this in stride, even though it completely blew away his entire way of thinking. God knew what was going on in his head.
Jules, meanwhile, couldn't take her eyes off the man in the trenchcoat, who had been silent the entire meeting. His face was screaming guilt, and, after some pondering, it finally clicked as to why.
"You're Castiel, aren't you?" Everyone turned to follow her gaze. The man returned her stare for a moment, then nodded, and lowered his gaze to the floor.
Surprisingly, there was no anger or accusations pouring from the men and women around the room, as Cas had been expecting. The ones that had known were over it and had somehow forgiven him, and the ones that hadn't were too tired to bother being angry. Henry had already figured it out despite Dean's efforts to avoid saying it. He was a detective at one time; he had recognized the guilt on the angel's face the moment Dean first yelled about the leviathans.
Shawn thought for a moment, and carefully asked the question no one had expected. "You've proven you can take things out of Pigajury -"
"Purgatory." He corrected.
"Whatever. Well, is it possible to take just one thing out. Like an Alpha, for instance?"