Chapter 10 Blood and Blood
Eagle Harbour, Washington
The night air was heavy with salt, forming halos around the caged lights that lined the floating concrete docks. Somewhere a loose wire halyard tapping against an aluminium mast, the quiet clanging a counterpoint to the soft footfalls of the man walking up the dock and into the boatyard. He was slender and self-possessed, dark-haired, smooth-skinned, neatly dressed, the leather patches on the elbows of the navy jacket a slight affectation.
Benny stepped from the shadows as he passed by. "Hello, Quentin."
The vampire turned around slowly, his gaze travelling up and down the man behind him as if he were looking at a ghost. "Benny."
Benny strolled toward him, face half-shadowed by the soft, peaked cap he wore, navy pea-coat identical to the one he'd been wearing when they'd thrown him into the ground. It'd taken him some time to reassemble his wardrobe, but he wanted them to recognise him easily, no mistakes made.
Quentin backed up a step. "No, it – it can't be you."
"I get the confusion." Benny smiled, the soft drawl in his voice becoming more pronounced. "You, of all people, knew I was really, truly dead. After all, you held down my legs, didn't you?" He was pretty sure that Quentin believed, now. "When the old man told Sorento to saw off my head."
The smile disappeared. "Where is he?"
Quentin grimaced slightly. "Are you serious? Did you really think I'd tell you where he is?"
"Well, I guess I was …" Benny said softly, lifting the long, asymmetric blade in his hand up, the light above them glancing from the edge. "… kind of hoping you wouldn't."
Quentin's eyes shifted to the knife and returned. "On the other hand, I might show you where he is." His gaze cut behind the vampire in front of him to the two men walking up from the docks. "After me and my boys take off your hands and feet."
Benny watched Quentin's face, knowing it wasn't a bluff. He turned his head slightly to catch one of them in his peripheral vision. He would have known they were there from the scent, the miasma of rotting flowers and rotten flesh that drifted with vampires who killed. He smiled a little. "Well, don't go through all that trouble on my account."
"Please. You go and crawl your way out of God's ass for another ride on the merry-go-round?" Quentin said, his face hardening. "The old man's gonna want to see this for himself."
"Mm." Benny took off the cap, feeling that familiar hum rising through his veins. "Well, they might be able to kill me. And that's all right." He smiled at the man in front of him. "'Cause if they do, I know exactly where I'm going ... and who I'll see when I get there."
Quentin's growl burst out of his chest as his fangs descended and Benny smiled widely as the vampire lunged toward him. He stepped slightly to one side, the long blade whistling softly in the thickly humid night air. Quentin's head sliced free of his body and flew out into the darkness as Benny used the momentum of the swing to spin smoothly around. The other two were almost perfectly placed, one to either side of him, barely a stride's reach away. The razor sharp blade winked in the light as it descended again.
Enid, Oregon
Dean pulled into the parking lot of the motel and drove into the space in front of the door, glancing at his brother. "This it?"
Sam nodded tensely. "Yeah."
They got out and moved fast to the room door, Sam dropping to one knee, picks out. The door opened and he felt along the wall, hitting the light switch and striding into the room, head turning from side to side as he realised it was empty, going to the bathroom and hitting the lightswitch in there.
Behind him, Dean sauntered into the room, looking slowly around, half-nodding to himself. Of course the kid wasn't here. He hadn't been anywhere they'd tracked him to.
"Well, that is twice that he's burned us," he said, looking over at Sam. "Shame on you."
"No, no, no, no." Sam shook his head defensively as he walked over to his brother. "I'm the one who said he set us up."
Dean overrode him with a derisive snort. "No, you said, 'I wonder if Kevin is setting us up' and then you started in with the – the techno babble." He looked around, spotting the mini-bar. "That was like two states ago."
Sam gave up, sitting down on the end of the closest bed. "Yeah, well, whatever. Either way, that's another room billed to one of Kevin's false credit IDs." He watched as Dean picked the lock on the cupboard, frustration rising. "And the motel ran his number today!"
"Just like he actually checked in?" Dean paused, half-turned to Sam.
"Yes," Sam said.
The lock opened and Dean pulled the doors out. "Kid's like Rain Man. He's like a crappy little credit-card-counting ... criminal prodigy Rain Man."
"Well, he was in advanced placement," Sam pointed out sarcastically.
"Shut up." He passed his brother a beer and opened his own. "When's that little idiot gonna stop running from us?"
"I don't know, Dean. I mean, you did try to kill his mother," Sam snapped, feeling his anger rising again. He wasn't sure who he was more angry with, his brother for giving Kevin a helluva reason to run, or Kevin for not realising that all the running would sooner or later lead someone to him, and it might not be them.
Dean looked at him indignantly. "I was trying to kill Crowley, okay?"
Sam stared back, brow wrinkling up.
"Who happened to be wearing Kevin's mother at the time," Dean added reluctantly. "Well, there's a difference!"
Sam shook his head. "Apparently not to Kevin. Oh, I know. Maybe because – oh, yeah – it's his mother."
The cell in Dean's pocket shrilled precisely into the resultant silence. Dean looked down and pulled it out.
"Hold that thought. No, actually, you know what? Don't hold that thought."
"Hello?" He turned away from Sam as he heard the voice on the other end of the line. "Hello? Uh, hang on. There's not enough bars."
Walking out of the room and pulling the door closed behind him, he hurried past the front end of the car and stopped next to the Impala's trunk.
"Benny?"
"Hey, Dean," Benny said slowly. "You, um – you got a minute? Afraid I messed up, buddy."
"What did you do?" Dean asked worriedly, his mind instantly filled with visions of drained, white corpses and blood-spattered machetes.
"No, man, not like that," Benny said, dragging in a breath with difficulty. "Just had … a little … disagreement, with, uh, three of my … peers."
Dean's eyes closed for a second. "I'm sorry. You took on how many?" He felt a faint prickle at the back of his neck and looked over his shoulder at the room. "Are you crazy?"
"Hey." Benny swallowed. "See, the thing is, my legs – they ain't working so good. There's, uh... a fuel barge not too far from here. I'm pretty sure I can make it at a slow crawl. I was kind of hoping maybe I could ask you for one more favour?"
"Yeah. Where are you?" Dean asked
"Eagle Harbour, Washington. Down at the fishing docks. Near the diesel pumps." Benny hissed as he tried to move one leg, tipping his head back and forcing his breath in and out.
Dean listened, hearing the pain all along the airwave from Washington to him. The vampire had never exaggerated bad news. His mouth compressed a little as he thought of time and distance and what Sam was going to say.
"Get under cover, I'll be there in three hours," Dean said tightly. He closed the phone and turned around, striding back to the room.
He opened the door and walked to the end of the bed, picking up his bag and the gear bag and tossing both onto the bed.
Sam looked at him, his forehead furrowing as he watched his brother's methodical packing. "What are you doing?"
"Gotta go. I'll be about twenty four hours," he said, transferring a machete, shotgun, salt, two boxes of shells and two of bullets from one bag to the other.
"And – and what exactly is that supposed to mean, you've got to go?" Sam stuttered in surprise. There was nowhere to go, not until they had another lead on Kevin, at least.
Dean turned around and looked at his brother. "Which words are giving you trouble?"
Sam's mouth compressed tightly. "We're on the case, remember, Dean? The – the Winchester holy grail, 'shut the gates of hell forever' case."
Dean nodded. "Sure are. But in order to close the Gates of Hell, we need our Prophet, am I right?" He looked at Sam questioningly. "So step one – find Kevin Tran. Well, he ain't here."
He turned away, zipping up the gear bag and dropping it to the floor. He looked at the mini-bar and walked over to it. "But he wanted us to be, which means we're probably as far away from him as he could possibly put us." He crouched down and opened the bar door, looking into the fridge for anything that would keep his stomach quiet for the next four hours. "So step two – find Kevin Tran."
He glanced up at Sam. "You mind if I take the Toblerone?"
Sam stared at him and he shrugged, picking up the chocolate bar and putting it into his pocket. He grabbed a couple of bags of nuts and two cans of high-caffeine soda and shut the door, turning back to the bed and picking up the soft leather bag that had replaced his last canvas duffle.
Sam watched him pick up the bag and head for the door, his mouth hanging open – mentally and literally for all he knew. He hurried to follow him as Dean opened it and went out.
"Wait. Dean, seriously?"
Dean walked around the front of the car to the driver's side. "Hey, the trail is dead, but the room is paid for. You got some research to do, and I got some personal crap I got to take care of. That's all," he said over his shoulder.
Sam stopped on the other side of car, looking over the roof at him in bewilderment. "What does that mean – "personal"?"
"Did you have a stroke? Vocabulary?" Dean looked at him. "Personal, as in my own grown-up personal – I don't know – crap."
"Damn it –"
"What, Sam?" Dean cut him off, voice deepening slightly. "Last I counted, you took a year off from the job. I need a day."
He opened the door and got in, and Sam watched him start the engine, reverse out of the space and drive out of the lot, not a backward glance, not so much as a flicker in the rearview mirror. He didn't know what was going on. Dean didn't have personal crap. He didn't have anything personal.
I-5 N, Oregon
The interstate was empty and the black car roared through the tail-end of the night alone. Dean watched the road, everything else purely automatic, hands and feet knowing what they were doing, his mind filled with a low-charge hum that was slowly spreading out through his nervous system.
Benny. Whistling. He didn't know what the tune had been, although he could've sworn he'd heard before. Somewhere. The small clearing had been seemingly empty. But they'd come, like cockroaches in the dark. The vampire's senses had felt them all, his head turning to show direction, Dean's gaze following it and seeing the soundless undead, wraith-like between the narrow trees, coming out of the mists.
There were things that happened in a man's life that he couldn't forget, couldn't write off. At least, not if he thought of himself as a man. It wasn't something he could articulate, or explain or tell anyone about. Only a feeling that lived down in his gut. A scale, almost, of action and bloodshed and violence and honour.
It was how he weighed things, that scale. Betrayal against trust. Honour against evil. A blood debt against a blood debt.
In the year that he'd fought and struggled and bled down there, the vampire had filled and balanced the scale. Had never let him down. Had never walked away or given up or left his back bare.
It mattered. It was all that mattered, in fact.
Enid, Oregon
Sam pulled another beer from the mini-bar and wandered around the room, feeling his frustration and anger dissipating slowly. He was no closer to being able to figure out where Dean had gone or what could possibly construe a personal emergency for his brother, but he realised that a lot of the emotions that had come boiling out at Dean's inexplicable behaviour had been due to feeling like a failure for losing Kevin again.
He'd been so sure they'd get them this time. He should've realised that Kevin would have them running back and forth across the country if he could. He needed a new approach for the kid.
He put the beer down on the table and reached for the old leather satchel that held the laptop, pulling it out and plugging it in and sitting down as it loaded. Bringing up the documents he'd been able to find on Kevin, he ran the details through the credit reference site again.
"You are a wascally wabbit, Mr. Tran," he chided the absent student softly, looking at another new application from Kevin Davis Tran. For a little over twelve months on the job, Kevin had really developed into quite a competent grifter.
He picked up the beer, and stared at the application, wondering where else Kevin might have left his prints. The possibilities were legion, and he'd spent too long out of this kind of business himself to be sure that he knew of all avenues that Kevin might be harvesting. A year gone from this world was like a lifetime in any other industry.
An image flashed into his mind and he typed in another name, staring at the application when it appeared.
"Concerned," he told himself aloud as he looked at the picture in the corner of the screen. "Not stalking ... concerned."
He would go back, when he was done with his obligations here. It might not do any good, but he would still go. Her face, when she'd turned back to him, the phone held tightly in one hand, was still etched on his mind. It'd made leaving easier, but at the same time, harder as well. He didn't know how he felt about any of it, hadn't looked at any of what had happened, had just run. Again.
A soft noise intruded on his thoughts and he swivelled around in the chair, getting up silently, and walking to the bathroom. He flipped on the light and looked around, then up, the exhaust fan rattling softly against the vent.
The rattle brought its own memories and Sam's mouth twisted up derisively. He turned the fan off and unscrewed the vent cover, staring at simple mechanical problem for a moment, then going back out of the bathroom to get the small set of tools that he now carried everywhere.
Eagle Harbour, Washington
The sun had risen an hour ago, and Dean glanced at his watch as he drove the car down the nearly deserted riverfront. On the other side of the inlet, traffic ran along an elevated road, and downriver the sound of a ship's horn floated out over the sea and land. But the parking lot of Puget Sound Shipping was quiet and almost empty. He pulled up next to a pickup losing its battle with rust, a cracked and battered fibreglass canopy covering the tray, and turned off the engine.
The cab of the truck was open and empty. Dean walked around to the back, lifting the hinged door and saw the cooler sitting next to a couple of black canvas duffle bags, a sleeping bag, a can of gasoline. He lifted the lid. Inside were bags of blood, of the type usually found at hospitals or bloodbanks. He shook his head and closed the cooler, lifting it out and shutting the back of the canopy.
Now all he had to do was work out which of the half-dozen boats tied up along the waterfront was a fuel barge.
Finding the blood trail made it easy.
"Benny!" Dean called, looking around the barge's open concrete decks. He turned and saw the flight of stairs. On the edge of the painted steel railing, a smear of blood. And coming from below decks, the faintest hint of something rotten.
At the bottom of the stairs, a long narrow corridor stretched out. He could see the vampire, propped up against the wall down near the end. Christ. He hurried down and crouched beside him, looking at the rips and tears in his shirt, the blood stains that covered most of him. Benny's eyes were closed.
"Benny?" he said loudly. He couldn't even check for a goddamned pulse, vampires not having any. Benny's eyelids flickered and he swallowed his relief at the sight. "Not lookin' good."
The eyes cracked open a little wider and the vampire managed a small laugh. "Up yours."
Dean opened the chest and pulled out a bag of blood, pulling the end off the tube and pushing it into Benny's mouth, holding the bag up as the blood flowed down. Benny swallowed convulsively, shaking as the blood ran down his throat, his eyes closing again.
Dean looked at the mess of his legs. Aside from the mincemeat around the thighs and knees, he could see that the hamstrings had been severed, on both legs. How the hell had the vamp managed to get here, he wondered? And for that matter, how'd he killed whoever had attacked him without the use of his legs?
Dean sat on the edge of the table, looking out through the large portholes at the water. After about four bags, Benny'd been able to move, not great but under his own steam. They'd made the trip up to the messroom slowly, and hooked up the bags above the couch, the vampire drinking his way steadily through another half-a-dozen bags as the sun moved from side of the sky to the other.
He'd gone out a half-hour ago, to grab some food and coffee and check his messages. There hadn't been any, of course. Sam would be holding a giant economy-sized grudge for being dumped in the middle of the night without a full explanation. Dean shrugged inwardly, he'd deal with it when he got back. He wasn't going to leave before he was sure that Benny was okay.
When he'd gotten back, he'd heard the sound of a shower from the small bathroom to one side of the cabin. He looked around as the door opened, and the vampire walked out, steady on both pins, dressed in clean clothes, drying his hair with a towel.
Dean got to his feet slowly, staring at him. "Wow. You, uh... look okay."
"Getting there," Benny allowed, putting the towel back in the bag and zipping it up.
Dean swallowed his comment at that, watching him pick up his jacket. "Dude, you were double-hamstrung."
Benny grinned at him, pulling the jacket on. "Yeah, well, a little rest, a half a cooler full of AB-negative – most wounds short of an amputation will mend up ... vampirically speaking."
Vampirically speaking? "Uh-huh."
The vampire picked up the bag and pulled on his cap, walking over to him.
"I'll be a hundred percent before you know it," he said, picking up the cooler and holding out his hand. "Thank you, cher."
Dean looked at him, brows drawn together as he shook his head slightly. "Benny, what's going on?"
"Oh, your work here is done, Dean. You already saved the day," Benny said, walking around him and slapping a hand against his shoulder. Dean turned with him, eyes narrowed at the evasiveness in the vampire's voice. "You know, I got my, uh, deal, and you got – what'd you call it? A family business?"
"Benny," Dean said again, looking at him. "What's going on?"
Benny sighed. "You and that whole 'friend' thing, man."
Dean knew what he was talking about. Loyalty. Above all else. To Cas, at first, when they'd found him. Then to the vampire, when Cas had been lost to him and he'd had no one else.
"You keep doing this and I might not be as close the next time 'round," he told the vampire uncomfortably. "I just want to make sure I'm not going to be wasting time and gas chasing after you and saving your ass every few days."
"Well, it's good to know you're still dumb as ever," Benny said resignedly, shaking his head at Dean's excuse as he put the cooler and bag down and sat on the edge of the table.
"Some things never change," Dean agreed readily, turning to look at him. "Now, why are you getting into machete fights with your own kind?"
Benny looked down for a moment, then lifted his head. "Quentin, the one I came for? We were in the same nest." He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what his friend would think of it. Not that it mattered. "I'm hunting the vampire who turned me. My maker."
Dean took that in with a frown. "Well, now, don't get me wrong. I'm down with the hunting, but, uh ... why?"
"Kill him before he kills me," Benny said. "Again."
Dean looked at him. "I thought your maker left you alone?"
"He did," Benny exhaled softly. "For a while. Then he found me. Brought me into his flock. Made sure I knew that the sun rose and set with him." He shook his head.
"And you didn't tell me this before because …?"
"I didn't think it mattered, Dean," Benny looked at him, standing up slowly. "Hell, I wasn't sure we would even make it out. I didn't want to think about what I was going to do if we did – seemed like it would bring bad luck. And we had enough of that."
Dean couldn't argue that point.
Enid, Oregon
Sam rubbed his hands over his face tiredly. He should have crashed last night, he was getting too old to pull all-nighters the way he used to. He snorted at himself and got up, going to the coffee pot and pouring out the last cup.
Kevin had laid a number of credit card trails around the country. He'd sorted and resorted them, looking for a pattern, for a tell. Everyone had them; even the most experienced of hackers would leave some kind of pattern behind, do one thing in the same way every time. He just had to find it.
The coffee was bitter, but it was hot and he kept drinking it, letting his mind free-float as he considered all the options someone on the run had for screwing up any pursuit, real-time or digital or otherwise. Money wasn't a problem for them. Linda Tran had pulled enough cash to keep them going for a year, no matter what they needed, as soon as they'd left Laramie. What was left in the accounts was frozen now, but it didn't help in the short-term. Transport wasn't a traceable trail either. They could've bought something second-hand and with plenty of identification, he'd never find them that way.
If Kevin's only goal was to keep them off the radar, then he probably wouldn't be able to find them at all, he thought tiredly. All they needed to do was keep their heads down and keep an eye on the various means of tracking, and they'd be invisible. But, if Kevin was also trying to find Crowley, that would give him a trail to follow. The trouble was, he couldn't imagine how Kevin would be looking for the demon, what he knew about the King of Hell, what he didn't.
He walked back to the table, sitting down in front of the laptop and glancing at his phone, lying on the table beside it. No messages. No calls. No nothing.
He'd spent most of the day resolutely not thinking about his brother. There wasn't much point starting now, he thought, looking down at the blank screen. Dean'd taken off without explanation or warning exactly once in the last eight years. That had been to hand himself over to Michael.
There was no great self-sacrifice to be made here, no reason for the sudden departure, the urgency of the errand poorly disguised under the broad blanket of 'personal crap'. Sam sat down, lowering the cup to the table, one finger tapping against the phone lightly. The last time he'd gone, he hadn't told him because he'd known that his brother wouldn't agree, wouldn't begin to agree.
What could he be doing that he wouldn't countenance now? Something from the last year? Something that he'd hidden – god, that left the field wide, didn't it? Something that he was trying to keep hidden?
He shook his head. The sleep-walking or whatever it had been had almost stopped. His brother slept in small chunks through the night, and somehow managed to function the next day, temper short and fraying, but otherwise, pretty much himself, mostly himself, Sam thought. He still hadn't said anything about the nightmares he'd had. Or the way he was keyed up, always alert, always watching, listening. Sometimes he looked as if he was listening to things – things Sam couldn't hear – things that were, presumably locked in his mind.
He finished his coffee, looking at the screen of the laptop. There was nothing he could do about Dean. Except be around. He closed his eyes, mouth twisting into a suddenly sour smile. Of course, it was hard to be around when he took off.
Eagle Harbour, Washington
Dean looked down at the bloodstained possessions of the late, unlamented Quentin that had been spread out across the table, lit by a single lamp. He picked up the money clip and tucked it into his back pocket. Services rendered, he thought, glancing up at Benny. The vampire's attention was on the past and the receipts in the wallet he was looking through.
"Quentin and I went way back – one of the old man's favourites, next to me, it turns out," he said softly.
A spiral-bound notebook sat next to a phone and Dean picked it up, flipping through the pages.
"Listen to this. Age of Aquarius II. 0800. And then there's some other numbers all crossed out," he read.
Benny looked at the notebook, brow lifting slightly.
"Some other weird names here, too – The Big Mermaid, Solitaire – it's all crossed out, except this one – The Lucky Myra," Dean continued, staring at the page.
"Yachts," Benny said. Dean looked up at him, brow creasing as the answer failed to explain what the vamp meant.
"Names of yachts – Lucky Myra ..." He took the notebook from Dean, looking down the list. "Age of Aquarius II. Look at this one – Sea You Later, spelled s-e-a. I mean, come on."
Dean looked at the notebook. "So, then these are launch times. And what – destinations?"
"Mm-hmm," Benny acknowledged. "Except none of them ever get there."
He pointed to the last entry. "The Lucky Myra left yesterday afternoon. I guarantee you, it's already been hit."
"What do you mean, 'hit'?" Dean looked at him, frowning.
Benny straightened a little. "Boarded, burned, and buried at sea," he said quietly. "My nest – that's how we fed... How we always fed. We kept a tight little fleet, maybe a half-dozen boats. Nothing ostentatious, just pleasure craft. I must have circled the Americas ten times during my tour.
Dean listened to him, imagining them. Imagining the boat owners, in the middle of the big blue, nothing in sight, except a boatload of monsters, coming alongside, climbing over the rail, fangs descended, terror and pain and blood … and then … nothing. Death and the cold embrace of the ocean.
"A few of us would act as stringers and patrol the harbours, looking for the right-sized target – fat, rich yachts going to far-off ports. Take down the boat's name and destination, radio it to the crew in the water. And then we just, uh ... let the ocean swallow up all our sins."
He watched the man's expressions. The horror, the cold decision to end it, that didn't appear, and he wasn't sure why. Dean had told him he was a hunter. Killing monsters was what he did. But he didn't seem to be too worried about how the nest had fed, all those innocent people drained and thrown overboard, or burned up with the yachts they'd sailed on.
"Vampire pirates?" Dean said slowly. "That's what you guys are? Vampirates."
He looked at Benny. Benny looked away, one side of his mouth curling up a little at the joke.
"You know, all the years we ran together, I can't believe nobody ever thought of that."
"What do you mean? It's like the third thing you say," Dean looked at him.
"No, it isn't," Benny said firmly, not sure if Dean was joking or serious. There were parts of the man standing across from him that he did not understand, even now, even after all they'd been through. Dean would've died for him, he knew that. He'd killed for him, his own kind, and that was a memory he couldn't push away deep enough. There was a part of the man that made him nervous, deep down. Something lived and breathed in Dean that had no business being up here, he thought. No business being in a human being who was as loyal and honest and straight as Dean. He'd seen it a few times. It hadn't been under control.
"All right, so, your maker is set up to feed around here, right?" Dean picked up the wallet on the table and opened it. He pulled out the cash and tucked it into his pocket and unfolded a piece of paper. "Well, what are we looking for?"
"Well, he likes to live in style. He usually rents legitimately. Always remote, always coastal," Benny said slowly, thinking about the options along this coastline.
"So an island, maybe? You got a cable bill here," he said, reading it. "Hmm. Quentin's got the NFL package." He turned the receipt around, straightening it out. "Prentiss Island. Heard of it?"
Benny smiled. "Oh, yeah."
"How far?" Dean looked at him.
"Dean, this ain't your fight," Benny looked at him, head inclined slightly. "That's a nest. There's a dozen vampires in it – or there was, when I was killed. You don't need this."
Dean lifted his head and looked at him, his eyes dark and cold, the humour, the casual, prosaic expression gone from his face.
"Benny. Your nest is done feeding on people," he said, very softly. "This is what I do."
Benny felt a chill run down his neck and spine. This man he recognised. This man had looked up at him, covered in blood not his own, and had cut him down from the chains that had held him. He felt a fleeting stab of pity for his nest-mates.
I-5 N, Washington
"Keep heading north," Benny said quietly, looking out through the windshield. "We head left at Burlington."
Dean nodded. Between them, the cooler sat, filled with blood bags, the faint copperish reek starting to make his stomach twitch.
"So, if you were your maker's favourite, why did he kill you?" Dean looked at the vampire curiously.
Benny stretched a little and exhaled. "When you get turned, it's like you're reborn into a vampire nest. Your maker – he means everything to you." He turned and opened the cooler, pulling out a bag and opening it. "I mean, you really start believing he's God. Now, if your maker happens to believe the same thing, well ..." he let the sentence hang, drinking from the bag.
"See how that could be a pickle," Dean said, glancing at him and registering what the vampire was doing a second later.
"Mm," Benny sucked down half the bag, eyes closed.
"Well, uh –" he started, then looked at the bag again, his concentration shot by the sight. "You really have to do that? I mean, right now?"
Benny turned and saw the slight grimace, laughing softly at the incongruities in the man beside him. Hip-deep in blood didn't bother him at all. But someone sucking down a baggie?
"I'm sorry, brother. I'm better, but I'm still on the mend." He closed the bag and returned it to the cooler.
"Right," Dean looked back at the road. It was creepy. Watching it. Creepy. And too much of a reminder of what Benny was, beyond a friend and a comrade.
"Anyway ... our Father … he was a jealous god. He kept the family together but kept us apart from the rest of the world. Always at sea," Benny continued quietly. "I always did what was best for the nest. Till I met her."
Dean flicked a glance at him, seeing the vampire's head bow as memory filled him.
"Andrea. Andrea Kormos. Beautiful. I mean, words don't even cut it, you know? Greek, heiress."
"Come on," Dean said, looking at him. He couldn't believe that the vampire was spouting this drivel, couldn't reconcile the image of Benny, fangs descended and bloody ripping through a dozen ghouls, with the wistful, love-lorn note in his friend's voice.
Benny laughed a little at the deprecation in Dean's voice. "She was sailing a forty-two-foot sloop to the Canary Islands. Now, I should have called her boat's destination in to my crew, but instead, I joined her on it," he said.
"Seriously? Was Fabio on the cover of that paperback?" Dean asked mockingly, squashing a rushing emotion he couldn't name and didn't want to know about back down into the depths.
Benny didn't smile, he looked down, memories pushing at his heart – the dead, unbeating heart that had nevertheless been filled with a love that he still couldn't get over, couldn't get past.
"My life changed when she entered it, Dean. Everything I had been or done up to that point just ... seemed to vanish ... into what we had become together," he said, unsure of why he wanted the man to understand this. Because it had changed him? Beyond all recognition? He'd lived in pieces for so long, before. "I mean ... we found it, man."
He looked across at his friend, seeing that Dean was no longer smiling, no longer scoffing. He wondered about that. He hadn't told him this, when he'd told him of his past. He hadn't wanted to share her then, in that place. Here, it was different.
"Eventually, we settled in Louisiana. And then one night, we were coming home, and the old man – he was just there. Quentin, Sorento, my oldest nest-mates. It was only that night I understood what a crime it was to him – me leaving him. They pinned me down, and they beheaded me," he said. "The last thing I saw was the old man tearing out Andrea's throat."
He felt his own close up. It hadn't been a surprise, of course not. Julian had been nothing if not vindictive and spiteful. But it hurt. It still hurt, somewhere in his chest, where the few feelings that remained to him lived. It was a wound that was never going to heal because the scab kept falling off, every single time he remembered.
"Well, that's what payback's all about – am I right?" Dean said, his voice hard and expressionless, looking at him.
Benny stared through the windshield. It wasn't revenge. It wasn't even for retribution. He wanted to kill them simply because they were an evil on the earth that he could no longer bear to see, to know about. He would kill them as a deterrent. And because Julian would certainly hunt him down if he let him live.
"Docks are up ahead. Should be able to find a dinghy to use," he said as the water showed in glimpses at the end of the cross-streets. So much had changed. But the waterfront rarely did. The working waterfront, at least.
Prentiss Island, Puget Sound, Washington
The small launch chugged quietly through the water, its wake barely leaving a ripple behind it. The island, although private and exclusive, was just short of a mile from the mainland shore, and it was only a few minutes after midnight when Benny brought them around the point and into the still waters of the small bay, slipping between the mooring piles that lined the entrance.
Dean picked up the forward line, and settled himself on the bow, watching the sandy shore approaching. He jumped as he felt the keel touch the bottom, pulling the boat a little way up, securing the line and turning back as Benny tossed the two bags of gear to him. On the water, every sound carried, and he winced slightly at each clank as the bags dropped onto the ground.
They picked up their gear and Benny led the way across the tough, salt-soaked grassy foreshore into a small wood that hid the house from view.
"We're close," the vampire said softly.
Dean stared at his phone, typing in the text message one-handed. Hunting vamps – nest on Prentiss Island … not alone.
"Remind you of anything?" Benny stopped on a bend in the path, unzipping his bag and pulling his knife from it..
Dean looked at him and then at the phone. Yeah. It reminded him that he had his backup, right here. And Sam was distant. In more ways than one, he thought, mouth tightening as he deleted the message quickly. He put the phone back in his pocket and pulled out Purgatory, shaking the blade a little to feel its solid weight.
"It's weird being back – in the world, I mean," Benny said, his voice holding a thread of uneasiness. He threw the bag into the shadows beside the path. Dean tossed his bag next to Benny's in the darkness of the slope next to him. "Innit?"
"Sure as hell is," Dean looked down at the stone blade he carried briefly. He needed it, he realised suddenly. Needed it with him. The thought was uncomfortable and he drove it away. The axe was the best weapon for job, that was all. It had proved itself.
"I mean, what do you do with it all?" Benny looked from side to side as they walked along the path, footfalls deadened in the leaf-fall. "All the – all the everything?"
Dean's attention sharpened on him as he caught the frustration at the edge of Benny's voice.
"Hell, I don't even know if this world is real, if I'm real," Benny continued, staring around him.
No. Not now, Dean thought. This was not the time for navel-watching.
"Hey, listen to me," he said, his voice low but hard.
"I've seen what happens down that rabbit hole, okay?" He stopped, and beside Benny stopped as well, looking at him. "We're real. Benny, this is real. It's the only way to play this game, you get me?"
From the edge of the woods, the house looked undefended, lights on in most of the downstairs rooms, one shining out from the second storey, the fitful moonlight painting the Georgian front in shades of lilac and charcoal.
"We'll go around the back," Benny said softly. Dean nodded, following the vampire soundlessly around the garden and into the shadows of the house.
The multi-paned glass door opened readily to Dean's picks and he opened it, flinching inwardly at the loud click of the lock and the slight squeak of the hinges. Might as well have busted down the front door, he thought sourly, following Benny inside and closing the door behind him. The hallway wasn't long, a couple of doors on either side, and it led into the front entrance, under the sweeping staircase.
Next to the stairs a delicate harpsichord stood, tiled front clear in the moonlight from the front windows, its lid raised. Benny stared at it as they walked through the entrance, stopping to touch one corner. Dean stopped and looked at him, recognising the lost look on the vampire's face.
"Time to move, Benny," he whispered.
"The old man's harpsichord," Benny murmured, half to himself. He hadn't realised that memory would come back like this, in great ocean rollers, swamping him.
"Benny!" Dean hissed, turning and walking out of the exposed room, into the hallway on the other side.
Benny turned to follow him, and saw the frame, sitting alone on a pedestal close by the instrument. He stepped back and around, and saw the portrait it held, his hand reaching for it, snatching it up as he stared at the face, a beautiful, beloved face.
"No. No, no," he muttered, turning around, looking for Dean as realisation – of everything – crashed into him, crashed over him. At the top of the stairs, a door opened and light spilled down the wall next to the stairs. Looking up from the frame in his hand, he saw her coming down, the long stride, the unconscious grace with which she'd always moved with as unmistakable now as it had been the last time he'd seen her.
Andrea stopped mid-way and looked at him, her brows drawing together slowly in bewilderment. "Benny?"
"Andrea," he could barely get her name out of his throat, his gaze locked on her as she moved fast down the stairs, then slowed at the bottom, staring at him, into him, holding him as tightly immovable as if he'd been bound.
He heard them, behind him. Saw from the corner of his eye, Sorento coming down the stairs behind her. Smelled their reek all around him. But he couldn't move. Couldn't do anything other than look at her. Every detail matched his memories. And he shut away the knowledge of how it was possible. For her to be here. To be in front of him. Shut it away and tried not to look at it.
The first hit was from behind, the fist smashing into the back of his skull and knocking him to the floor. The second from the man in front of him, knuckles splitting the skin over the brow. He lost track after that, and none of it mattered because his body couldn't be any more battered than his mind was at that moment.
Dean pressed hard back against the wall in an alcove off the hallway, listening as bone hit bone and flesh and Benny's soft grunts echoed around the room.
"Idiot."