Pain, panic, fear, and betrayal flooded through his body as he touched down on the front porch of the modest cabin, so it really wasn't any surprise that Dean didn't bother to knock. The front door of the little house blew inward with a spray of splinters as the angel kicked out at it. "Knock knock!"
Muffled sounds came from behind a closed door to the hunter's left as he stalked into the house. He slunk toward it, listening hard for more muttering, and pushed it open a crack.
An old wooden chair with a bundle of rags carelessly tossed on top of it sat in the middle of the room. Slowly, Dean pushed the door open a little farther and slid through the small opening and into the room.
Upon closer inspection, the hunter found that the limp pile of tattered rags hadn't been tossed onto the chair by someone with too much on their hands to worry about cleaning up. No, it had been tied. The bound man couldn't have been older than 25, and was covered from head to toe with bruises and blood.
"Hey," Dean whispered, glancing around the room before venturing to its center, "hey, Charlie."
The man's head slowly rose from his chest. His face looked even worse than the rest of him. Both eyes were black and swollen almost completely shut, his lip was split, his nose was broken, and it looked like someone (or something) had beaten him over the head with a blunt object.
Dazed eyes scanned the room before coming to rest on the hunter. "You…" Charlie began weakly.
"Shh," Dean warned, dropping to his knees and starting to untie the battered psychic.
"You need to leave," Charlie muttered, his head lolling back until he stared up at the ceiling with unblinking eyes, "it's still here…in my dad… it's a trap."
"I'm not just gonna leave you here," the angel whispered as he finished with the ropes that bound the psychic to the old chair, "come on, I'll take you someplace safe."
"There's no place that father can't reach," an eerily flat voice said as the door creaked slowly shut. Dean stood up and whirled around, flaring his wings to hide Charlie from the intruder's sight.
The newcomer just smiled, wiping bloody hands on an already bloody shirt. Cold black eyes darted up and down the psychic's savior, assessing the latest threat to its mission. Apparently, the rather strapping young man with wings didn't seem to be too much of a problem.
The possessed man, most likely Charlie's dad (because, really, how many demons does it take to tie up and torture a psychic kid?), reached behind him and locked the door in one fluid movement, trapping them all in the room. "Nowhere to run," he hissed, sauntering slowly up to his captives, "nowhere to hide."
"Guess I'll just have to fight then," Dean smirked, throwing a quick glance back at Charlie, who seemed to have passed out again.
"I guess you will," the demon replied, reaching out with his foot and kicking a long metal pole up into his hands. The shimmering surface of the object had been caked in blood, gore, and what appeared to be a tuft of blond hair. "Come and get it, bird boy!"
The angel rolled his eyes. "I'm starting to get kinda tired of all the wings jokes. Couldn't you guys-"
The demon swung out with his weapon, cutting off Dean's incredibly helpful suggestion as the pole connected with the hunter's head. An inhuman shriek of triumph filled the room as the angel fell.
"Wow," the possessed man cooed, dropping the pole and stooping down to slide his fingers through the blood and chunks of grey matter that had begun to pool on the hardwood floor, "looks like I don't know my own strength."
"Guess not," Dean muttered, kicking the demon's feet out from under him and standing shakily up, "good thing I know mine."
Black eyes widened as Charlie's father peered up at the man that had just bested him and blood dripped from the hunter's face onto the floor with a hollow plopping sound that effectively filled the room. "Impossible."
Dean bent down and grabbed the collar of the man's shirt, hoisting the demon to his stolen feet before shoving him into a wall. "Never underestimate the impossible."
The demon hissed, attempting to recoil from the angel's grasp as the smell of melting flesh wafted through the small room. From behind him, Dean could hear Charlie muttering weakly, pleading for his father's life. There was a faint sound of metal scraping wood as the discarded pole skittered across the floor.
"Don't do it, Charlie," Dean cautioned as the demon squirmed against the wall, still fighting to get away.
"That's right, son," the creature mocked, "let the grown-ups talk."
"You're not," Charlie whispered weakly as the pole stopped its journey, "my father."
"If I look like your pop and quack like your pop," the demon began, a sly smirk worming its way across a stolen face even as the sickening stench of burning flesh began to overpower everyone present. Dean slammed a hand over the man's mouth, frowning at the uncomfortable feeling of the skin melting beneath his palm.
The demon began to buck and jerk, struggling harder than ever to get away from his opponent. The angel backed off, pulling his hand away and loosening his grip on the writhing vessel.
The creature opened his host's mouth wide and escaped into the atmosphere, screaming in pain as he did so. Charlie's father slumped into Dean's arms, moaning through what was left of his mouth.
The angel lowered himself and the now-unconscious man slowly to the floor. He placed a hand over the other hunter's mouth, glancing back at Charlie as he fixed the remnants of his handiwork. "You all right, kid."
"Maybe," Charlie sighed, groaning as he slid out of the chair and crawled across the floor to where Dean and his father sat, "is he gonna be ok?"
"He'll be fine," the angel assured, "you're the one I'm worried about."
"There's something out there that wants me dead," the younger man muttered, stretching out onto the bloodstained floor, "yeah, I figured. Jo send you?"
Dean nodded, lighting tapping Charlie's father on the cheek, trying to wake him up. "Yep. She was starting to get nervous. Looks like she was right."
Charlie nodded weakly. "Yeah. She's really intuitive like that. It's kinda freaky, really, the way she gets these vibes and they turn out to be right. Almost like she's…" the psychic trailed off, his half-closed eyes snapping suddenly open as realization hit him.
"Almost like she's like you?" Dean finished. The younger hunter didn't speak, just shut his eyes and nodded again. "You don't actually think-?"
"Go," a strong voice suddenly ordered as the once-possessed man sat up, "I'll cover the house and tend to Charlie. Find Jo."
The angel gained his feet quickly, running out of the room and leaving the two hunters to lick their own wounds and seal up the house against another demonic invasion.
o0o0o0o
The front door to Harvelle's Roadhouse burst open as Dean ran in, not really caring if anyone besides Jo and Sam was present to see him without his jacket on. He slid into the bar, nearly overbalancing and toppling into the slick red mess that coated the floor.
Jo Harvelle lay in a heap at his feet, her throat slit, brown eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling as her body cooled.
"Sam!"
No reply, nothing but the wind whistling by outside the building. In the distance, a lone bird chirped out a sad little song.
"All right," Dean muttered, stooping down into the bloody mess and closing his old friend's eyes, "it wants a war, I'll give it a freakin' war." He stood up, taking one last look around the abandoned roadhouse. "Ready or not," the angel hissed, murder in his eyes as he exited the familiar building, "here I come."