Chapter 10 Canis Major
Dean felt the backwash of disappointment from the dog behind as Sam bumped up over the driveway and slowed down to enter the parking lot. He suddenly realised he was hanging most of the way out of the passenger window, his cheeks were stiff and aching a little from the wide smile that must have been plastered across his face for the entire cross-town ride and he thought he might have a bug or two on his teeth.
Sliding back in, he kept his face carefully averted from his brother, unlocking the door and getting out, going straight to the rear door to open it for the dog.
"I think it might be best if we just leave the Colonel in the car," Sam said, across the roof.
"Excuse me?"
"Well," Sam said, looking over the car and gesturing widely. "All the windows are open."
"You think we like that?" Dean demanded, his voice deepening.
Sam looked at him uncertainly. "We?"
"You think that because all the windows are open, that's some kind of a treat?" His brother's brows drew together as he stared over the shiny black metal. "That it makes up for being left alone? Abandoned? Not knowing if anyone will ever come back!?"
"Uh…"
"No, the dog's coming in," Dean snapped, turning to clip the leash on the Colonel's collar.
That was quite an interesting insight, coming from a human.
Dean looked away, chewing the corner of his lip uncomfortably as he waited for the Colonel to jump out. He wasn't sure where it'd come from, the anger bursting free without thought. He didn't want to see his brother's questioning look, the one he could feel burning into the side of his head.
That's the man?
Really? He can hear us? Understand us?
What's the story, Colonel?
Alright, give it a rest, let the guy do his job.
Dean walked down the aisle, looking at the cat cages and wondering which of the remaining animals had had enough of a view of what'd happened to be able to give them some kind of description. At the end of the row, an ageing Collie looked up at him politely. He flicked a look at the papers attached to the side of the cage.
"Uh, Tillie?"
Yes, dear, that's me.
The thought, like the pigeon's, had maybe a microsecond's hesitation, and he guessed that was the relay between the Colonel's mind and his own. It was surprisingly disorienting, like talking to someone on a bad overseas line.
"So, what can you tell me about the man in the cowboy hat?" he asked, looking at her mostly grey coat, and completely white face.
Honestly, I couldn't see much. Damned cataracts – and you know no one's going to pay for my surgery. I don't belong in here, you know, I'm pedigree!
"Well, I'm sure you'll be out of here soon," Dean said soothingly, glancing down at the dog beside him.
Please, I'm fourteen.
The tone, even delivered through the Colonel's more pragmatic mind, was weary and knowing, and he didn't know what to say to counter it.
"Uh, well, good luck … ma'am," he offered, turning to close the door, the metal latch dropping down with a final clunk.
You ready to run the gauntlet?
Dean looked down the aisle and nodded, keeping his head down as the complaints and pleas, request and downright threats followed him along.
"What are they doing here, anyway?"
Don't ask me. One minute, we're safe in a home with a family. The next, the guy in the black van turns up and this is it. People get bored, I guess.
"Anything?" Sam asked as he came up to him.
"No, angle's too great for most of them, and they didn't like the way the guy smelled."
Hey! Pretty boy! Over here!
He turned around to see a Yorkie standing up against the door of its cage, looking at him.
"Yeah, sorry pal, I'm done for the day," he told the dog.
But I saw everything!
"Oh yeah?" Dean asked sceptically. "From down here?"
Look up and left, genius.
He turned around, looking up at the round convex mirror that showed the entire aisle clearly. Shrugging, he turned back, walking closer to the little dog's cage.
And I'll tell it all, every last detail … but … it'll cost ya.
Dean smiled. "Are you kidding me?" He looked at Sam. "I'm being extorted by a dog."
Tsk, tsk, that's such a nasty word. How 'bout 'persuaded'? That has a much nicer feel to it.
Dean's mouth twisted down. "Crap stays crap, no matter what you call it. What do you want?"
Right down to business … alright. Information's a precious commodity as I'm sure you know –
"Cut to the chase."
I want a … belly rub.
He had to repress the urge to laugh, ducking his head and shrugging as he reached for the latch of the cage. "Okay, sure."
Not from you, sugar. From the other fella. The one with the big hands.
Dean looked at the Yorkie, wondering if he'd just imagined the tone that'd come with that.
"What? What did it say?" Sam glanced from the dog to his brother.
"Uh …" Dean said, looking down at his hands, resting on the cage door. "Well, he, uh, he says, he wants a belly rub. From you."
"A what?" Sam looked at the Yorkie, small dark eyes twinkling at him through an unruly mop of fur. "Why?"
"Sam, I don't think we need to go into the whys of what dogs want what they want –"
His brother made a face. "I meant – why me?"
"Oh. Well, uh, you got bigger hands."
"Huh."
"You in?"
Sam could just imagine the fuss if he didn't cave to this request. Oh, yeah, never got to gank that monster, Sam was too sensitive to take one for the team, just had to give a belly rub to a dog, but well, you know, next time …
"Sure."
Undoing the latch, Dean pulled the door open and picked up the little dog, depositing it into Sam's arms. The Yorkie flipped itself onto its back with a remarkable dexterity as his brother looked down at the long, silky fur that covered the ribs, fining out over its belly. The hind legs flopped apart, toes twitching in anticipation and the eyes closed in bliss as his brother starting rubbing his fingertips in circles from the high arch of its ribs over its belly.
"Alright, everything, you said," Dean reminded the dog, as its mouth opened and its tongue fell out to one side.
Aaaah … well, he was wearing a cowboy hat, leather pants, one of them string ties, the ones with a little clasp that slides up and down …
"Okay," Dean prompted, frowning. "What else can you tell me about the guy other than his outfit?"
Ummmmmm … he was carrying a burlap sack, for the cats.
"What'd he want with the cats?"
Hell if I know but he took all of 'em … 'ceptin' the one he ate.
"Oheew!" Dean's face screwed up as the image splash-landed in his mind's eye.
"What?" Sam looked at him.
"Apparently the guy has a sweet tooth," Dean said, his grimace reminiscent of someone trying to get a hair out of their mouth. "For, uh, kitty-cats."
"Oh."
And the sack had somethin' written on it.
"And? What'd it say?" Dean looked up as Sam lifted his hand and started to shake it.
Ohhh …
The bright, beady eyes looked back at him as the dog yawned affectatiously.
"Come on, we had a deal!"
You tell that to your boy, he's the one who stopped holding up your end.
"Sam?"
"Hand cramps!" Sam hissed at him, flexing his fingers and shaking his hand harder, trying to get blood and feeling back into his fingertips.
Dean lifted a shoulder in a semi-sympathetic shrug, gesturing at the dog. "He's not talking."
The look Sam sent him promised a conversation about this beyond-the-call moment somewhere down the line, but his brother closed up his hand and continued the belly rub with his knuckles.
Better …
"Get on with it," Dean snapped impatiently.
It said Avant-Garde Cuisine and don't get your panties in a twist just because a dog is taking a few well-earned –
That's a restaurant, on Main Street.
Dean looked over his shoulder at the Colonel.
No dogs allowed.
"Hamburger and dish-soap," Dean said, nodding at him and turning back to Sam. "We gotta go downtown," he said, shrugging as he saw Sam's eyes widen. "Apparently our guy works in a restaurant."
Sam stepped forward as his brother stepped back, depositing the Yorkie ungently back into the concrete-floored run.
Aw, now, wait a minute.
"Dean? You ready?" Sam looked back, brow furrowing up as Dean turned and walked back down to the far end of the aisle.
"In a minute," Dean said, lifting the latches on the cages to either side, opening the doors.
Never would've pegged you for a softie.
He glanced over at the Colonel, mouth curling up derisively as he let out the last three and they bounded, skidded and scrambled up the slick floor toward the doors.
Pushing the rear doors open, Dean stood to one side as the stream of dogs shot through the gap and made for the street. He looked down at the Colonel.
"You should take off too," he told the dog. "From here, me and Sam'll take the guy down. You'll be safer well out of the blast zone."
The strength of the Pack is the wolf.
"What?" Dean asked as the dog looked down at the ground for a moment, then back up to him, mouth opening and the long tongue spilling out a little, dark brown eyes filled with a thoughtful appraisal.
Not up on your Kipling? We'll be around for a while, say, within whistlin' distance.
"No need, we can take him."
Maybe you can. But we'll still be around for a while.
"Not too close," Dean warned, rolling his eyes slightly as he pulled the doors closed.
The dog trotted away, tail straight up, but he heard the final thought.
And the strength of the wolf is the Pack.
The Impala cruised down Main Street, Dean keeping just under the speed limit as they passed the restaurant.
"Blinds are closed but there're lights on inside," Sam said, turning in his seat as they passed it.
"Working late?"
"Private party? There's a car parked out front," Sam shook his head. "Someone's in there."
"We'll go around back," Dean decided, making a right at the next corner.
The parking lot was dark, only two cars parked there when he pulled in near the door. No one came to look at them with the clunk-squeak of the doors opening and closing.
"Locked but not alarmed," Sam said, pulling out picks and dealing with the lock.
Dean nodded. "Figure on at least the chef and another employee."
The hallway was lit, and Dean looked around, glancing over his shoulder at his brother.
Sam took point, checking each of the closed and open doors they passed. The place was silent. Good soundproofing or no one working right now?
"Dean," he said, stopping beside a door marked 'Office'. "Hey."
It was unlocked and he pulled out his flashlight, walking in and shining the beam around the room. To one side, stainless steel shelving holding bulk ingredients sent gleams of light back from the flashlight. On the other, a desk was tucked into a space against the shelving holding the restaurant's canned and packaged stores.
"Check this out," he said softly, the flashlight lighting up a framed photo of a skinny man in a pale yellow cowboy hat, holding a carving knife. He read the inscription on the bottom out loud. "Chef Leo. Think he's our guy?"
"It's Okie town," Dean grunted. "Lotsa dudes wear cowboy hats."
Sam slid into the chair in front of the desk and switched on the desk lamp. Dean kept going, veering to look at the contents of metal shelves against the wall.
The first drawer on the left-hand side of the desk held pens, pencils and order books. Sam pulled out the top drawer to the right and blinked as the bottles rolled back and forth in the beam.
"Whoa, Oxycodil, Ultram, methadone," he read.
"Mmm, guess he likes to cook comfortably numb," Dean remarked, flicking his light over the shelves and skimming through the labels. He frowned as he saw the jars of dried and crushed foliage, tucking his flashlight under his arm and unscrewing the lid on one wide-mouthed jar. The powdered contents were a pale purplish colour, smelling faintly herb-y. Echinacea (Purple coneflower), the label had been done in a printed and even hand. Beside it, there were jars of rowan, bark and berry, goldenseal … hawthorn … acorn … vervain … quite the herbalist's selection, he thought. Turning, he walked to the fridge. Dozens of Tupperware containers, all filled with a tell-tale reddish liquid, filled the capacious shelving of the glass-doored fridge, each marked with the contents. All in their raw state, he thought, reading through them.
"Hey, owl brains, cheetah liver, grizzly heart," he said.
"Found a spell book," Sam said from behind him. "Shamanism."
"Okay, what's a chef doing dabbling with witchcraft?"
"I don't know," Sam said slowly, looking through the notes. "These are notes, the shaman would never've written this down. He might not've known he was being recorded."
"Notes on what?" Dean frowned at him.
"Uh, they're recipes … kind of," Sam said, reading down the page. "Listen to this, tongue of a boa, venom sacs of a cobra, peyote, purple coneflower, goldenseal. There's an incantation and a ritual cleansing … to be ingested … gives the powers of the snakes used …" He looked up at Dean.
"And hey presto, mega snake," Dean said softly. "What else is in there?"
"Everything," Sam said, flipping through the pages of the thick book. "To gain strength, grizzly heart and white mustard plant, yarrow and sagebrush. For speed, cheetah liver –"
"Doesn't sound much like Native American shamanism," Dean interjected.
"This is African, Bwiti," Sam said, blinking at the ingredients. "Cheetah liver, iboga … I mean, that's only found in Central Africa, it's used in ritual animism there along with initiations."
"How do you know that?" Dean asked exasperatedly, turning to stare at him.
Sam shrugged. "Look at this," he said, looking through a dozen cards tucked in between the pages of the book. "Doing a little experimentation here. Lion liver and eagle heart. Baboon brains and black widow fangs. And this one, chameleon pituitary gland and skin, cat adrenal gland, grizzly heart and black mamba, entire." His nose wrinkled up in distaste. "He's mixing and matching."
Dean looked around the room. "He's a chef. That's what they do, isn't it?"
"But why? I mean, he can already kill in a number of ways, and so far all the kills have been to get these ingredients, right? Why make the spells more powerful?"
The noise in the hallway was small but distinct and both men turned, guns drawn and cocked in the same motion, Sam flicking off the desk lamp as he rose from the chair.
Standing back from the door, his flashlight aimed along the barrel of the automatic, Dean's gaze was focussed on the centre of the doorway as his brother opened it and moved to the side. He went into the hall, checking in one direction, feeling Sam move out behind him and check in the other. It was empty, the eye-searing, fire-engine red patterned wallpaper unbroken along its length.
Turning they walked down the hall, coming into a large commercial kitchen, shelving of huge pots, tureens and pans lining one wall, stainless steel counters, sinks and island benches, cooktops and ovens taking up the others.
They both heard the sound, coming from the lit area further in. The first kitchen led into a second, closer to the main seating section of the restaurant and Dean uncocked and stowed his weapon as he saw the young cook standing at a counter, grinding something with a mortar and pestle. He looked up at the scrape of Sam's boot on the floor, setting down the bowl and frowning at them.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Cops," Dean said, looking around. "Got a gas leak down the street, everyone's being ordered to evacuate the block."
The young man looked at their jeans and jackets sceptically. "Cops?"
Sam scowled at him. "Not that it's your business, but they pulled in everyone and we're detectives working Vice," he snapped at him. "Since you're obviously tapped into the line, if there's a leak it could end up Armageddoning here so I suggest you take your attitude, anyone else in the place and get the fuck out!"
The sous-chef's eyes widened like a child's and he nodded, face paling, striding toward the door. "We've got a private party tonight, uh, three other people and a waiter –"
"Get them the hell out!" Sam roared at him. "Get them into their cars and out of the area as fast as you can, move it, MOVE IT!"
"Yessir!" The young man ran, crashing into the waiter who was bringing an empty tray in from the other side and sending the tray flying into the air and bouncing on the tiled floor with a horrendous clanging and ringing.
Dean kept his face completely expressionless with a self-discipline honed and tempered in his father's training, holding his astonished bubble of laughter down and away until he heard them hit the front door.
"Where the hell did that come from, Callahan?" he asked with a half-strangled laugh.
"Listening to you," Sam said shortly. "Take the front?"
Dean nodded, turning for the swinging door.
"We even know how to kill this guy?" Sam asked, looking around the kitchen.
Waving the automatic in the air as he hit the door with his hand, he said over his shoulder, "Empty one of these in his head. See what that does."
The door swung shut behind him and Sam moved slowly through the room, checking any space that was big enough to contain a man – or something man-sized.
From the hallway at the rear of the restaurant, there was a bang, then the heavy clunk of the fire door being closed. The Taurus' barrel lifted and he crabbed fast through the first kitchen, looking both ways at the wallpapered hall before he moved out. At the end, the fire door had been opened. He could see it standing slightly ajar and he moved toward it, leading with his gun hand.
He wasn't sure if it was something tangible, or instinct, or both, but he could feel a living presence, close by and he slowed down then stopped. Turning his head slowly, he looked at the end of the corridor, unsure if the soft whisper he could hear was breathing, in and then out … and very, very close.
He stared at the wall next to him, his brow furrowing as his mind registered light and shadow, curve and line against the repeated patterns of the wallpaper. Leaning closer, his eyes narrowed as he studied the wall – then widened when, a little below his own eye level, a pair of brilliantly green-gold almond-shaped eyes suddenly opened.
The involuntary step backward saved him from the first slashing strike of the long fingers, each digit tipped by a retractable, curved claw. Sam felt the tips catch on his jacket and he wrenched himself free, stumbling backwards down the hall as the colouration of the figure in front of him gradually faded away, the red background and white and yellow Sixties shapes dissolving, too fast to be natural, to be anything Nature would provide. The skin of the naked man was reorganising the chromatophores, melanin and reflective cells throughout the four layers, he thought, remembering the process of chameleons from some vaguely recalled documentary. But it didn't happen like this. And no chameleon could mimic its surroundings to such extreme detail.
Tall and narrow-shouldered, with a long, lean face, Sam recognised the man's from the photograph and he swallowed hard as he tried to remember what the fuck had been on the recipe card along with the chameleon and the cat.
The chef's body twisted up a little, thinning further, the transformation accompanied by a popping and crackling of bone and sinew beneath the skin. His eyes, pupils slitted vertically, remained the same and the long claws at the ends of the fingers and toes stayed as well; the rest rippled, reflecting the overhead light of the hallway at different angles, as smooth and sinuous as that of a …
… snake, he thought, memory coming back and his hand lifting simultaneously, his .45 calibre Taurus snapping out and levelling as his finger squeezed the trigger.
The creature writhed effortlessly to one side and was in front of him before he could squeeze off a second shot, the gun snatched from his hand and flung back along the hall, claws lashing out and this time catching the side of his throat, ripping through skin and flesh, tendon and artery as the man leaned close to him and smiled, his features flattened and blunt.
Blood was pumping out, he could feel it, a hot spill down the side of his neck, the coppery reek filling his nostrils as he slammed his hand up and connected with the man's elongated jaw, two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle and bone sending the (chameleon-cat-snake) monster flying backward down the hall and onto the floor.
Swinging away, Sam heard the thing's hiss, part cat, part snake, and scrambled along the wall, pressing his palm against the wide-open cuts he could feel transecting his carotid, aware that he had seconds at most to get the hell away before he was either opened up again or bitten. The long-ago memory returned to him with vivid force as he half-ran, half-staggered down the hall … the classroom hot and stuffy, the other kids staring at him with varying expressions of boredom and an apathy that seemed to suck his own energy from his bones, clearing his throat and looking down at the notes he'd prepared … the black mamba is the fastest and one of the most venomous snakes on the planet …
Consciousness vanished abruptly.
Ezekiel drew upon the power of the vessel's soul, lifting the hand that was held over the wounds and lightening the touch to just fingertips as power from within filled them with a cool blue-white light. Cell to cell, nerve and muscle, artery walls and skin fused together from the inside out, rejoining without leaving a trace of the injury. Some blood had been lost, he considered dispassionately. It couldn't be replaced in time. He could hear the convoluted combination of feline yowl and elapid hiss behind him but there was no further power he could draw from the soul without jeopardising himself.
He withdrew.
Sam came to suddenly, leaning against the wall with his hand still clutched to his neck. He spun around at the noise behind him, blinking at the contradictory information of his body, a memory of pain that he couldn't now feel; an awareness that his hand was sticky with blood and the faintly metallic scent still filled his nose but he couldn't feel an injury, couldn't feel a flow, and he didn't feel dizzy any more. He abandoned the conundrum as the man in front of him morphed slightly, the elongation of his frame shrinking in a series of almost-strobing contractions, his irises darkening, the pupils expanding wide and contracting back to a human roundness, the claws retracting with a vaguely sickening sound into the ends of his fingers.
"How did you do that?" Leo asked, taking a single step closer, the final flicker of light-edged scales vanishing.
"D-do w-w-what?" Sam stammered, knowing what he was talking about, unable to think of a single cogent response. His shirt collar felt heavy and limp with the blood soaking it, sliding over his collar bone as he stood straighter, eyes flicking to his gun, now three yards behind the man and on the floor. How was it he was covered in blood but he couldn't feel the cuts on his neck?
"What are you?!"
Sam felt his eyes widen as the man's outline shifted again, growing taller, slab shoulders and deep barrel chest furring rapidly, muscle flexing and bunching under skin strained tight. The fist that flashed out in a straight jab was bigger than his and it hit like a sledgehammer on the point of his jaw, the reverberation from the impact slamming his brain against the inside of skull and black filling his vision as he fell to the floor.
"Whatever you are," the chef mused, looking down at him and dropping clumsily to one knee as the attributes of the bear receded. "You are what I need."
Dean came back through the empty dining area, the back of his neck prickling as he heard noises from the kitchen behind the swinging service doors.
Sonofabitch.
He recognised the steady, high-pitched scraping sound and turned soundlessly, taking the door at the other end of the room and moving down the short hall to the corridor that led to the parking lot. In the middle of the hall, the spatter and half-congealing small pool of blood stopped him for a second, and he looked down at it expressionlessly then stepped around it and walked toward the kitchens.
The guy – Chef Leo, he thought belatedly – or whatever he was now – had gotten the drop on his brother. He pushed the knowledge aside firmly. His fear for Sam wouldn't help and the accompanying anger would take the control he needed.
On the slightly moving air, he could smell the rich, warm scent of meat, the earthy scents of vegetables, accompanied by a cooler scent of water, could smell the acrid tang of the slowly heating metal of the blade the asshat was sharpening, could hear the faint sounds of the tiny filings falling to the floor. Underlying that, he picked out the scent of his brother, the slight tang of Sam's blood, spilled out but no longer flowing, drying in the air-conditioned coolness of the room.
He realised he could smell another mixture of smells surrounding the sharper odour of the blade being honed, the acid scent of reptile and the rank reek of predator intertwined. In his mind, that data was being collated unfamiliarly, an oddly fluxing sensation through his skull as if his brain was using an area it hadn't before. In his mind's eye, a three-dimensional image formed, the position of Leo overlaid on the existing knowledge of the layout of the kitchen.
He was on the outside edge of the wall's corner when he heard Leo speak, a low peevish mutter, "Why does it smell like dog in here?"
Stepping out from the edge of the wall, Dean fired without hesitation, the notched sight at the end of the barrel centred over the man's shoulder-blades, the trigger pulls smooth and fast, the casings jingling as they hit the floor at his feet.
He had no idea what happened next.
A heavy cleaver lay on the floor next to him, its recently-honed edge red and wet. There was a white-hot, throbbing ache blooming fiercely in his right shoulder, and he was lying on the floor looking up at the face of something that might've been a man but wasn't any more, into perfectly round, black eyes, the pupils delineated by fine pale circles surrounding them.
Fists knotted in the front of his jacket, hauling him into a sitting position, his right hand numb and not working, his auto lying three feet away, half-hidden under an open shelving unit.
"It's coming from you," Leo said accusingly, slitted nostrils flaring delicately.
Behind him, at the other end of the kitchen, Dean saw Sam, lying on the floor.
"What'd you do to my brother?"
Leo's fingers jabbed into the open cleaver wound, his almost-lipless mouth smiling as Dean's breath hissed out with the pain. Keeping the scream locked down in his throat took just about everything the hunter had.
"Your brother?" the chef asked, looking over his shoulder thoughtfully. "Interesting family, the man-who-can't-die and dog-boy. But you should really be worried about what I'm going to do to you."
Gotta stay conscious, Dean thought, fixing his attention on the thing in front of him. He saw the muscles around Leo's eyes ripple slightly, the shape of the eyes changing, flattening out, irises and pupils returning to those of the man in the photograph.
His voice was different, he thought distractedly, not American. British? Somewhere else? What Leo had said registered slowly. The man-who-can't-die? He looked back at Sam, seeing the blood-soaked collar of his jacket.
Zeke.
Another scent, rotten and ripe, hit him as Leo's breath gusted out over the side of his face and he turned to look at him.
"You're sick."
He had no idea where that knowledge or the complete certainty of it had come from. The smell, not decomposition or putrefaction, but something that had elements of both, had translated into a hundred different pieces of information, wrongness, rot, out-of-control cells, shedding themselves into Leo's bloodstream.
"I suppose I am."
"Not in the head," Dean said slowly. "All the way through, it's everywhere."
"I guess it's true, then," Leo said, getting to his feet. "Dogs really can sniff it out."
He picked up a roll of roasting twine and cut a length from it. Dean's eyes widened a little as he saw Leo's outline flicker and solidify, the thin shirt bulging suddenly as shoulders and chest expanded, hair on the man's forearms and wrists thickening, and the bones of his face bowing out for a fraction of a second and back in as some internal change took over. Leo's eyes got smaller, recessing under the ridge of his brow, small and dark and ursine.
"Stage Four," he said, gripping Dean's right wrist and twisting the arm sharply. "As you say, all the way through."
Pain struck like a bolt of lightning, closing in around his vision, sheeting down his right side and contracting every muscle. He barely felt himself dragged back to the pillar behind him, the pull on his right arm opening the deep wound widely, blood spilling hot down his chest and waves of agony rolling over him as Leo pulled both arms back behind the concrete column. The twine, thin but tough and tightly spun, bit into his wrists, cutting into the skin.
Don't pass out, he told himself furiously, struggling to keep his eyes open, fixing his gaze on his brother. Don't even think about it!
"I didn't know," Leo said, getting to his feet, his body rippling surreally again, features turning and twisting and the weight and bulk shimmering and dissolving. "By the time I did, it was too late. And it doesn't matter what I do, it keeps coming back."
"Sounds like God's trying to tell you something," Dean slurred, sucking air in between his teeth as he pushed back at the pain, his teeth snapping together as he tested the strength of the twine binding him. He flinched a little as an incorrectly joined edge of the metal-clad corner of the pillar cut into the side of his thumb.
Leo made a noise in the back of his throat. "Maybe. But I'm not ready and I'm not going quietly."
He walked over to the shelving and bent, picking up the automatic and looking at it. Dean stiffened as the chef swung the barrel around, the small black hole at its end pointed at him.
Click.
Leo laughed, glancing at the scattered casings on the floor. "You know, the black mamba is fast, the fastest snake in the world, but I don't think it's fast enough to avoid every one of your bullets, not on its own," he told Dean, tossing the empty gun onto the floor.
"Fortunately, my latest endeavours have been a success. Animals have more than just their strengths to offer. They have a vitality, a passion to their lives. Kill or be killed. Simple. Unambiguous." He turned away abruptly. "People have largely lost that … that vitality. Look at us! Grinding away at jobs we hate! Forced into choices that are the last thing we'd ever choose if there wasn't any other way! Meaningless things clutter our minds and our bodies and all of it is making us sick, filled with wretchedness and tension and the unending futility of trying to understand where the importance is."
Dean watched him pace agitatedly across the floor, working the binding around his wrists against the sharp edge of metal.
"Animals understand that there is life and there is death and there's nothing in between. They don't waste their precious moments wondering if the living room wall is exactly the right colour to go with the drapes. They don't care what they look like or what it all means. They're focussed on what's important, for survival, every second of their lives."
Gesturing at the counter, he looked back at Dean and smiled. "I'm following that philosophy now. No more wondering if I'm doing the right thing – I'm doing the only thing I can to survive.
"And if you smoke a few people to keep living, who cares, right?" Dean asked, sensing that the justifications were almost at an end. "You're all right, that's all that matters?"
"You are what you eat," Leo said coolly. "And predators are more efficient." He looked at the ingredients sitting in front of him. "Wolf heart and goldenseal, iobaga and sagebrush and … as the piece de resistance, your brother's organs, lightly sautéed in a sweet oil, I think. Sounds good, yeah?"
Swivelling his left wrist inward, Dean gripped the length of twine, sawing harder.
The chef picked up the cleaver, lifting it and running his tongue along the bloodied edge. "I can't see much point to eating you, however. And I'm a little busy this evening, so let's get this over with, shall we?"
The twine was parting, strand by strand and Dean stretched it further as Leo walked toward him, ignoring the thin trickle of blood he could feel over his hands, the deeper stab of the wound in his shoulder, the grey mists that were crowding out his peripheral vision.
The twine sliced through and he was rolling left hard, hand sliding on the floor a little with his blood as he pushed down, feet scrabbling under him.
For a moment, Leo stood there, staring at him, and Dean realised that whatever powers the man'd had, they were gone at this moment. He was human, ordinary and … killable … he thought, lunging forward.
The cleaver swung in a wide arc, slow and clumsy, and he avoided the blade easily, dropping a little as his left hand closed and then rising, the straight cross hitting Leo's chest on the breastbone with all of his weight behind it. The chef staggered back, light spearing from the blade as the cleaver flew in a low trajectory across the room and clanged against the stainless cupboards.
"No!" The chef backed away, his gaze flicking from side to side for another weapon.
"All out of juice, Leo?" Dean asked, following him around the table. "Guess that means you're just an ordinary asshole now."
Leo clutched at the edge of the table, looking down automatically. He reached out and grabbed the wolf's heart sitting on the edge of the chopping board, lifting his head to stare triumphantly at Dean as he opened his mouth and took a bite, scooping up handfuls of the other ingredients and shoving them in as he chewed.
"Rahuraar, sakuriisat iisat a ti'pah kaawakit. 'A tarahkista'u... a raah," he said, the words muffled and sprayed out, his eyes fixed on the half-eaten muscle in his hands.
Around Leo, the air shimmered and glittered and Dean saw the man's dark eyes lighten, the iris becoming round and a deep gold as he consumed the heart. He seemed to thicken … massive trapezius, deltoid and pectoral muscle bulging under the skin, creating a top-heavy look, the sternos to either side of the neck widening abruptly. Leo's head tipped back, and a stentorian rumble sounded in his chest as his lips drew back from a jaw that was suddenly longer and deeper, the flat white light of the kitchen's fluorescent lights gleaming from fang and incisor and long, red tongue.
Plan B, Dean decided. Chef Leo had just gained at least two hundred pounds of efficient canine muscle and size for size, he didn't think he could take him without a weapon that gave him some advantage of reach.
He turned and ran, hearing the rumble ascend into a howl, long and eerie and loud in the confined space, echoing from the hard surfaces. He heard the crash as a shelf went down behind him, the unmistakable clicking of claws over the tiled floor.
The fire door at the end of the hall looked a thousand yards distant, he could feel his blood pumping out of his shoulder with every stride and every heartbeat, soaking his coat and shirt, slicking down his skin. Behind him, there was a thud against a wall, followed by the frantic scrabbling of claws over the floor and a growl that was turning into a snarl, thick and liquid and hungry.
Dean accelerated, his arm tucked hard against his chest. He hit the door lever straight-armed with his left, the door flying open and slamming with a crash against the wall, his bootsteps grating loud over the parking lot. Stopping abruptly ten yards from the door, he looked into the darkness of the alley.
"Nowhere to run." Leo panted as he came out of the building and stopped a few feet from the door, the slow squeal of the hinges and final clunk and click as the door closed and locked itself loud in the silent asphalt lot. "Wolf against dog-boy? Think you stand a chance?"
"No," Dean said, not turning around. "Not without a pack."
He whistled sharply, the two-tone note carrying through the night. Immediately there was an answering deep-throated bark, then another, and another, joining together in a primal and chilling baying symphony as they came down the alley in a seething, furry mass, the big dogs at the front, the smaller ones trailing behind, high-pitched yapping filling in the gaps between the growls and snarling.
Leo turned to the door, hitting it in frustration as he realised it was locked. He spun around and ran for the other side of the lot, half-jumping as he saw the high chainlink fence in front of him, his fingers curling through the links.
Watching him, Dean thought he might've made it if he hadn't tried the door first. The Colonel launching himself at the chef's back, jaws closing around his neck. The rest, Weinmarer and Lab and wolfhound and bitzers, leapt together, teeth snapping, sinking into muscle and tendon, crunching on bone and their combined weight dragging him back off the chain, taking him down. He heard the sudden high howl of a dog injured and took a step forward, hesitating as it was overridden by a longer, deeper ululation, filled with agony and cut off abruptly as one of the pack found the exposed throat and tore it out.
Turning away, he walked back to the door and pulled out his picks, trying not to hear too much of the sounds behind him, his imagination furnishing images anyway. Finessing the lock was a bitch one-handed, worse given that it was his stupid hand that had to do the work. The concentration it took muted his surroundings and he closed his eyes as the lock finally clicked open. He felt light-headed and disoriented as he used the handle to help him to his feet, pulling the door open and stepping into the hall for the second time that night.
Sam lay on the floor, and Dean dropped to his knees beside him, thumb feeling for a pulse as he rested his right hand lightly on his brother's chest. He felt both heartbeat and the rise at the same time, breath gusting out in relief.
"Hey," he said, slipping a hand under Sam's neck. "Sam, come on, wake up!"
He couldn't see any movement behind his brother's eyelids, and he leaned closer, tapping his cheek gently with his palm. "Hey, Sammy! Zeke! Whoever's in there! C'mon, wake up! Don't make me lick your damned face! HEY!"
Sam's eyes snapped open, looking up at him, then wriggling back a little to look around. Dean bowed his head for a moment, pushing everything back down again, grateful and at the same time, hating the constant see-saw he seemed to be on, fluctuating between fear and fury.
"C'mon, man, it's over," he said, looking up to find Sam's gaze fixed to his shoulder. "Not as bad as it looks, let's go."
He shifted his grip and held out his left hand, Sam's fingers curling around his as his brother sat up and he leaned back, and they got to their feet together.
"What happened?"
"To you?" he asked, walking stiffly out through the kitchen. He was just about at the end of what he could ignore in the way of the pain that filled his entire right side. "I got no clue. I came in and ol' Chef Leo was sharpening a cleaver and you were lying there, out for the count."
"To you, I meant," Sam said, frowning at him. "Your shoulder?"
"Oh." He thought about that for a moment, then shrugged with his left shoulder. "I can't remember exactly. I emptied a clip at the sonofabitch but only grazed him once, then I was on the floor and I couldn't move my right arm. He moved faster than I could see."
"Snakes, uh, they can control their muscles individually," Sam said. "Mambas can strike more than a dozen times in a second. How'd you kill him?"
"I didn't."
"What?" Sam lengthened his stride and turned his head to look at him. "He's alive?"
"No, puppy chow right about now," Dean said tiredly. "The Colonel brought reinforcements and they took him down and they're … uh … they're disposing of the body."
He saw Sam's face screw up in disgust from the corner of his eye, ducking his head to hide his smile. Sam'd always had the more sensitive stomach.
"What do we do about this?" Sam gestured vaguely around as they walked down the hall.
"Told those guys there was a gas leak in the neighbourhood."
"Yeah, we did, didn't we?"
Dean slowed down, turning to look back at the kitchen. "Kitchen should hold most of the blast. But I need to get the dogs out and gone and you should call in emergency response before I set it off."
"Go and tell the Colonel to get the others out," Sam said, stopping beside him. "I'll take care of the call and the leak. I'll limit the damage to the kitchen and the office as much as possible."
"You just woke up," Dean argued, but Sam could tell it was only a token counter.
"And you need to stop moving that arm around," he said, his face screwing up as he look more closely at his brother's clothes. "Go, I'll be out in a minute."
Tiredness, of body and soul, was leeching his little remaining strength, Dean realised as he remained standing there. He watched Sam turn away and walk back to the kitchen. Whether he wanted to accept it or not, Sam was right, he couldn't keep it together for the next bit. He turned around and walked to the fire door, pushing it open and whistling over the reduced but still present sounds of the dogs eating.
Your brother alright?
"Walking and talking," Dean said lightly, looking at the dog. "We're going to blow this place, you need to get these guys out of here."
The dog looked critically at the man in front of him. His nose told him every precise detail of the wound and the pain and the blood still flowing.
You need to get that fixed up.
"As soon as we're all out of here," Dean assured him, looking around. There wasn't much left of Leo but a few tattered shreds of cloth and pulled apart bones. Weird animal attack, he wondered? It would drive the cops around the bend, but it couldn't be traced back to anything else without the information inside the restaurant.
He watched the dog trot over to the others, too far to hear them, too tired to care about how the Colonel was going to dissolve his impromptu cavalry. Leaning against the side of the car, Dean closed his eyes and waited.
Sam came out of the building three minutes later, nodding to him as he walked over.
"They get out?"
"Yeah." Dean looked at the restaurant. "How long?"
Holding up his phone and waggling it, Sam gave him a one-sided smile. "When I say."
"Huh."
"Get in the car," his brother ordered. "I'll drive."
He thought about arguing briefly then gave up the idea, hauling open the passenger door and sliding in. Sam started the engine and backed them out of the alley, turning onto Main Street and heading north.
"Clean up."
Dean turned his head as Sam spoke into his phone. Behind them, there was a muffled whoompf as the mid-section of the building blew up, and he saw the brilliant yellow light outlining his brother's features, reflecting from the rearview mirror.
"That oughta do it."
Sam nodded.
The bakery was closed but the lights on inside spilled across the sidewalk through the half-open blinds and Dean looked down at the Colonel as the dog was hugged enthusiastically by Olivia Camrose, the corners of his mouth tucking in at the dog's surprisingly transparent expression. Under the thick layers of gauze and tightly wrapped elastic bandage, his shoulder was throbbing, but he could feel a reluctance to say goodbye to the mutt.
This is the best you could come up with?
"Aren't you the sweetest?" she gushed, pressing her cheek along the Colonel's.
Dean ignored both comments and looked at the couple. Combination therapy had reduced the network of dead blood vessels and flesh around their eyes, although Dylan said it would take months of skin grafts to get them looking anything like normal again. Bandages and stitches for awhile, Olivia had added uncomfortably. The dog would help them take their minds off that at least.
"You must be starving," Olivia said, getting to her feet. "Lucky for you, I baked some vegan doggie cupcakes. Hon, can you help set up the bed?"
"Yep," Dylan agreed, looking at Dean. "I'll let you say bye."
"Thanks." Dean waited until they'd left the room and crouched down next to the Colonel.
I'm gonna be pooping wheatgrass and soy for the rest of my natural life.
"Better than the shelter, isn't it?" Dean countered mildly. "Maybe you can convince 'em that meat's not all that bad?"
The dog looked around the bakery. Yeah, and then I'll run for President.
"I wish we could take you on the road," Dean told him, rubbing behind the dog's ears automatically. "But it's no life for a dog."
Don't sweat it, kid. I get car-sick anyway.
"What?"
The Colonel looked away. I barfed in the back of yours. Just, heh, too chickenshit to tell you about it.
"What!?"
No one's perfect. You did good, with that thing.
"I had help," Dean reminded him. "A lot of it."
One good turn deserves another. Pack loyalty doesn't come to everyone. You earned it.
"Colonel? Come and get it, boy!" Olivia appeared from the back, holding a large metal bowl.
Smells like –
Dean snorted. "Take care of him," he said to the couple, dropping the leash.
"We will!"
"Thank you!"
He nodded and turned for the door.
In the lot behind the bakery, Sam was waiting next to the car, leaning on the roof. Dean came down the shallow steps, head snapping around as he heard a clunk. On the lid of the dumpster, a scrawny cat was frozen, staring at him.
"Good pickings?" he asked it.
What would you ca–
The rest of whatever it'd been about to say dissolved into a whining meow and it spun around and disappeared.
"Go alright?" Sam asked.
"Bad news is that I'm going to miss the fleabag," Dean said, feeling a faint headache behind his eyes. "Good news is that it looks like the spell is finally wearing off," he added, glancing back at the dumpster.
Sam nodded, his gaze dropping to the roof of the car. Dean looked at his expression, feeling his stomach drop a little. Sam'd had too much time to think out here.
"You okay? Leo got you pretty good."
"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam told him, straightening up a little and looking away. "I – I just can't stop thinking about what he said."
"C'mon, Sammy," Dean said, trying to inject some kind of derision into his voice. "Guy was out of his fucking gourd!"
"Yeah, but …" Sam shook his head. "…why – why would he ask that? Why would he want to know what I was?"
The emphasis caught at Dean. "Who the hell knows?" he said quickly. "He was all jacked up on juice, you know, he was possessed by – by something he couldn't control – it was …"
The words trailed away as another implication hit him and Sam looked at him quizzically.
"It was only a matter of time before it completely took over," he finished unwillingly, not wanting to hear that out loud, not sure why he'd let it out like that. He looked up at his brother, catching Sam's narrowed look. "You can't reason with crazy, right?"
"I don't know," Sam said, looking away. Crazy had been his whole life. He'd thought – he'd hoped – that part was finally over.
"Well, I do," Dean said, sucking back his doubts and forcing himself to look at his brother squarely. "Trust me, Sammy, you got nothing to worry about."
Sam nodded, opening the driver's door and getting in. On the other side of the car, Dean let out his breath, eyes closing for a moment. He got in, looking obliquely at his brother as Sam started the engine and pulled out.
Grinding away at jobs we hate! Forced into choices that are the last thing we'd ever choose if there wasn't any other way! Leo's words echoed back in his thoughts and he leaned back into the corner between door and seat, closing his eyes. Too many more of these talks and his brother was going to figure it out, he thought uneasily, Sammy's monster brain pattern-matching away in the background, connecting the all the dots.
I-35 N, Kansas
Sam glanced at the hunched figure at the other end of the seat, looking back at the road.
What are you?!
He still couldn't get the incredulity in the chef's voice out of his head. As if he'd been something other than human. As if he'd been … he didn't know what.
He'd confessed and he'd felt the blood burn out of him. That was done. Gone, he told himself firmly. But there were other things, things he couldn't quite remember, couldn't quite make sense of, things that fluttered in his dreams and woke him with a cold sense of disorientation, or a thick flush of heated fear, or an emptiness that mired him in indecision and a creeping dread.
He tried to set aside the amorphous tangle of thought and half-memory and murky emotion, tried to get back to a clear plan. Kevin was struggling with the tablets, or at least with his fear of getting lost and disappearing in them. There wasn't much they could do to help with that, they needed to know everything that was on them, needed the power that would give them. And they needed him as well to make the almost-obsolete but in some ways far-advanced technology of the order work for them as well. He kept seeing the situation table in his mind's eye, lit up with the locations of the angels – and maybe, the demons as well if they could work out a key for them, he thought, giving them a way to go after them and get rid of them one by one. Crowley wasn't budging, although he had the feeling that the demon wasn't as in command as he made out to be. He'd thought that Crowley had experienced remorse, in the church, at the end. Had that been for what he'd done, he wondered? Or for what had happened to him?
Dean muttered something and he looked over at his brother, seeing him move restlessly, the dashlights outlining the edge of a drawn brow. He eased off the accelerator and leaned over, his fingertips light on Dean's temple, looking at him more closely when he felt heat there.
When they'd gotten back to the car, he'd patched the deep cut as well as he'd could with the med kit from the trunk, cleaning it out with a saline solution and filling it with antibiotic powder. Had he missed something? They hadn't brought the order's unguents with them, he needed to make up more from the recipes in the apothecary. He leaned over further and felt his fingers slip over wet skin as they touched his brother's forehead.
He was sweating and feverish, Sam realised, straightening up and putting his foot down.
Lebanon, Kansas
"Is he going to be okay?"
Sam turned to see Kevin at the door of the dim room, hovering with his hand still on the doorknob.
"Yeah," he said, injecting a certainty he didn't really feel into his voice. Physically, he'd be fine, he thought. For everything else, the odds weren't good. "He's made it through a lot worse."
"Do you need me to do anything, Sam?" Kevin took a small step into the room.
Shaking his head, Sam made an effort to stretch his mouth into some kind of a smile. "No, we're good."
Kevin nodded and stepped back, drawing the door closed behind him and Sam turned back to look at his brother.
The antibiotics and anti-inflammatories had begun to deal with the infection and fever, the redness surrounding the deep cut had slowly started to retreat, and he'd watched with relief as the order's healing paste had drawn the edges together around his stitches, his brother's skin fading to pink then white.
Against the pillow, Dean's face looked thin and pale, his hair darker, the shadows surrounding his eyes standing out like bruises. Watching him without him knowing about it, Sam swore inwardly to himself as he realised that Dean had been hiding something from him, the lines of tension bracketing his mouth and around his eyes were still present, even unconscious.
Was it just his brother's fear about him? Dean'd brushed off the day spent out of it in the car after the angels had fallen. But since then, he'd been asking on a regular basis, he thought, asking how he felt, if he was okay, insisting that he rest, that he shouldn't overlook the effects of the trials … it wasn't exactly unlike him, he thought, frowning as he remembered the last few months, but he wouldn't have been doing it all unless he'd been afraid that something had gone wrong.
What could've?
He felt fine, he thought, mentally assaying himself. A little tired from the last job and the worry about his brother, but everything physical was functioning okay and aside from the odd dreams, he felt better, emotionally, about himself, than he had in years. Felt like he could be normal – like he was normal. He hadn't finished the contract he'd begun, but it didn't seem like that had any repercussions beyond his collapse at the church.
Looking thoughtfully at his brother, brow creased up as he tried to go through all that'd happened in the last few weeks, he couldn't find a logical reason for Dean's worry about him.
Five days later.
Flexing his shoulder cautiously, Dean looked around the library. Sam'd taken the stitches out two days ago, and there wasn't anything but a dark red knotted line, running over the collarbone and a couple of inches below, to show of the injury. The healing paste had stunk and burned for a day or so, then had numbed everything. He could use his hand and it still had most of its strength.
He looked down the length of the room to the situation table, his brother's head bowed over the computer on it. Sam'd been silent and withdrawn for the past few days, brooding over something, he wasn't sure what. It was making him uneasy, never a good thing when Sam went dark with his mental processes.
"Hey," he said, walking down the room toward him.
Glancing up, Sam nodded, his gaze going to straight to his brother's right shoulder.
"How's it feel?"
"Good, just stiff," Dean said, walking casually behind him to take a chair on the other side, his gaze sliding sideways. He saw a dozen open windows on the screen as he passed by, catching the headline and date of one. The night the angels had fallen.
"Where's Kevin?" he asked.
"In the office, still looking for Metatron's spell," Sam told him, leaning back slightly in his chair. "I looked in on him earlier, he's writing something down."
"Good," Dean said, looking down at the table. "Okay."
"The, uh, pain from that affecting your sleep?" Sam asked diffidently, waving a hand in the general direction of his brother's shoulder.
"No. Mostly gone now."
"Uh huh." Sam nodded. "So there's some other reason you're not getting more than about four hours?"
Dean looked across at him sharply. "Just the usual."
"What is 'the usual', Dean?" Sam leaned toward him, his tone blunt.
"Find any jobs?" Dean looked at the laptop pointedly. "Weird deaths? Angel locations? Demonic signs?"
"No, all quiet." Sam's frustration gusted out in a deep exhale. "What are the nightmares about?"
For a long moment, Dean looked at the wall behind his brother, debating the pros and cons of tossing his brother something to deflect the questions that would only escalate and create further suspicion if he thought he was being kept in the dark. Then he shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "I got about ten lifetime's worth of crappy memories, Sam. There's a lot of scope." He looked at him. "They're not 'about' anything in particular."
He could feel his brother's curiosity, probing at him as their eyes met. He wasn't buying it, not completely, but he wasn't arguing about it either.
"You remember after Cas took off with the angel tablet, Dean?" Sam asked him. "When we agreed that we'd stick to the truth, not get back into that shit of lying to each other?"
Sighing inwardly, Dean shrugged. "Yeah."
"That still holds, right? You don't lie to me, I don't lie to you?"
He fought against the urge to look away, keeping his eyes on Sam's. "Yeah, that's the deal."
"Alright."
Dean watched him look back at the laptop screen, his hand returning to the mouse as he shut down the windows.
Lying about lying now, he thought, getting up and walking back to the library steps.
Yeah, I might have lied. But I never once betrayed you.
A lot of the memories of what he'd said to Sam, when he'd been possessed by the spectre, had come back, in bits and pieces, in sharp-edged fragments in his dreams. He swallowed at that memory, throwing the accusation at his brother. He couldn't say that anymore, could he? There wasn't much that could've been more of a betrayal to Sam than helping the angel possess him.
Stopping in the doorway to the kitchen, he leaned against the door frame, eyes closing tiredly as a wave of guilt and shame rose up and swallowed him whole. Sam would understand, he told himself. He'd make him understand that there was nothing else he could've done, no other way to save him, to make it come out right.
Down past the memories and the feelings he tried to not to acknowledge, down below the holes and the emptiness and somewhere in the middle of the wasteland, where he lived and breathed and it was just him, he felt himself shrink a little, a worm of doubt creeping through him.