Chapter 11 On the Edge of the Abyss
Camp Tawas, southern Lake Tawas, Michigan
Stu rubbed his eyes tiredly as he shifted on the high tower platform between the fields and the wide strip of forest that divided the farmland from the lake. The sky was lightening, turning the night mists that rose from the lake and the damp ground from a murky grey to a shifting, nacreous silver, the trunks of the trees barely visible and the fields hidden completely.
The outer watch, as the towers were called, were a rostered duty for everyone over sixteen years old, and the job usually came around once every four months. Four outer watch towers looked out over the approach roads to each of the camps, and each watcher had a radio to alert the night watch in the camps if anything was seen or heard.
He'd relieved Marie at midnight, the thin, dark-haired woman grumbling as she'd climbed down and headed back to Tawas. Cheryl would be here any time now to take over the first of the day watches and he wondered vaguely if he'd be able to convince her to spend another night with him in the deep hay piles in the barn. He had the feeling it'd been a one-off event for her. There was no harm in asking, he thought tiredly and yawned again, looking around the mist-enshrouded land.
The movement caught his eye. For a moment, he wondered if his brain had created it, that furtive ducking in the darkness under the canopies of the trees, a combination of tiredness and the shifting, amorphous mist. Getting to his knees, he picked up the binoculars beside him, lifting them up and adjusting the focus on the line of trees to the east as the fog swirled and shifted across the ground in between.
There. And there. No figment of his imagination. Real.
His heart began to pound as he picked out more and more shadows in the gloom between the trees. He heard the distinctive jingle of Cheryl's keys at the same time, his head snapping around to see her bright blonde hair catch the light as the sun peeped above the horizon.
"Cheryl, look out!"
She stopped, staring around her, a slim woman in her early twenties, curves coming back with regular food, filling out the t-shirt and jeans she wore. She saw the shapes under the trees at the same time as Stu dropped the glasses and picked up his rifle, screaming at her as he lifted the barrel and brought the sight down over the first to break out from the shadows.
"RUN!"
Cheryl turned and ran. Stu pulled the trigger, watching the croaty's head explode like an overripe melon as the big calibre hit the side, grunting in satisfaction as he worked the bolt and found the next target. But they were pouring out of the tree line now, not ten or twenty but a hundred or more, flanking Cheryl as she ran up the long rise toward the camp, others breaking off and heading for him. He heard her scream as he fired again, unable to spare the time to look for her, knowing what it meant anyway, his heart contracting sharply in his chest.
An arm slapped against the bottom of the platform, pushing at the trap door. Stu checked the bolts and gagged as the sickly-sweetish scent was blown up and over him by the vagrant morning breeze, caught from the group of creatures below him. Staring down at them, firing randomly now into the crowd, he could see there was something wrong with them, other than the usual croaty afflictions. Their skin seemed bumpy, as if they were covered in warts. And in their half-naked state, he could clearly see the swellings under their arms and jaws, in the joins between pelvis and thigh, the skin there shiny and black.
Boze stared at the monitor, shutting out the alarm system that was blaring through the compound around him. The small black and white picture showed the heaving mass of croaties, fighting each other over something on the ground. He didn't want to know what the something was.
"How many?" he snapped at Rona, night watch on duty.
"More than a hundred, but they're splitting up, keeping to the forest along the lake so we can't get a fix on the exact number," she answered, licking her lips and keeping her eyes carefully averted from the screen.
"You called in to Chitaqua and Sable?"
"Of course, as soon as I heard the shot," she said.
"Sorry," he said, rubbing a hand over his face. "Keep an eye on what you can see from here."
He turned away, looking up at the stairs as Renee came down, dressed and with her arms full of blankets.
"Ray's setting up a triage in the dining room," she said to him, turning to walk with him down the hall. "Any wounded, bring them straight in to us."
He nodded, watching her peel away as he continued on. He'd fallen hard from the minute he'd met her, but it'd taken him almost a year to get her alone for long enough to tell her how he'd felt. He'd been shocked when she'd smiled shyly and told him that she'd felt the same way. She was a practical, pragmatic woman, at least in public. In private, there was a different side to her.
Going out onto the wide porch he stopped for a moment, looking at the people lining the wall, listening to the steady chatter of machine guns, and the occasional blasts of the mines that were set up in concentric rings around the camp. No matter how many there were, they could defend themselves in here, he thought firmly.
Camp Sable, northern Lake Tawas, Michigan
Emmett looked down at the grey shapes that ran for the walls, throwing themselves against the logs and falling back, trampled under the next wave. Occasionally, one wouldn't get back up and several others would fall on it, the noises rising from the group bringing bile to his throat, nothing left of the croaty when the group broke apart but a few white bones.
Well, if you were wondering if they were still cannibalistic, now you know, he thought grimly, turning away. There was no chance of them being able to get in, the walls were twenty feet above the sloping ground, topped by the razor wire, and his people were firing continuously, leaving most of the attackers on the blood-soaked grass of the open ground between camp, forest and lake riddled with bullet holes.
"Nothing supernatural about them, at least," Max said at his elbow, her face cool and empty of emotion as she watched the carnage.
"No, I'm thankful for small blessings," he agreed. "Any of ours hurt?"
"Jerry dropped a box of ammunition on his foot," she told him with a disdainful sniff. "Joel's treating him."
Emmett smiled and nodded. The single gate to the compound had been built in the same way as the Tawas gate. It was impenetrable but the croaties had concentrated their attack there, a growing heap of bodies lying outside of it now.
"You got word from Boze or Dean?"
"Boze says they're doing the same thing to Tawas as they are here, just circling the walls and throwing themselves into the kill zone," Max said, her brows drawing together at the thought. "Dean was at the gate. Bobby said that they took out a helluva lot with the mines, setting them off as they watched them come in through the zones, but they're still coming."
"Suicidal?"
"Seems that way," she agreed reluctantly. "I don't like the way they look now."
"They never were all that pretty," Emmett looked down at the bodies at the base of the slope.
"They look different … lumpy," Max said uneasily. "And those swellings, what are they from?"
Emmett shook his head. "Dunno, when they're all dead, we can go out and take a look."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
Camp Chitaqua, Lake Solitude, Michigan
Jerome leaned forward, staring at the small black and pictures, a deep frown shadowing his eyes.
"Bobby, you ever see smallpox when it was still around?" he asked the hunter in a low voice.
"Saw it out west a couple of times, before the vaccinations became compulsory," Bobby said slowly. "Why?"
"Look at these things," Jerome said, pointing at the screens. "It's hard to tell with such a small image, but I'd swear those are pox blisters."
Bobby swallowed. "I'll get the doc."
He turned the wheelchair fast, heading for the back room behind the kitchen where Kim and Merrin had set up an emergency room.
"Doc, need you to see something," he said, stopping at the doorway. She looked up at him, and nodded to Merrin, leaving the nurse to continue setting out the equipment and lay out sterilised cloths over the table.
"What is it?" Kim hurried down the hall behind him.
"Smallpox, we think," Bobby said shortly, pushing the chair to the monitors as fast as he could.
The small dark-haired woman passed him, moving around to Jerome's side and leaning toward the monitors. "This isn't distinctive enough to be sure, it could –"
She froze as a body fell across the camera's field of view, much closer than the others, her eyes widening and her breath catching as she saw the pustules over the body. Her attention sharpened when she noticed the blackened, swollen flesh under the armpit.
"Oh god, no."
"It's bubonic plague, isn't it?" Jerome said quietly beside her.
Looking at him, she nodded. "I think so. It may have become pneumonic by now, there's no way to be certain."
"Plague?!" Bobby snapped. "They've got plague?"
"The lymph nodes are all swollen, blackened. A little gift from Pestilence, I would imagine," Jerome continued expressionlessly. He looked at Bobby.
"You have to tell Dean, all of them, to burn those bodies now, flaming arrows if they have to, but they are not to go near them, they have to be burned straight away."
Bobby looked at Kim, and she nodded. "I don't know if Alex got tetracycline, I'll check but it only works if there's no infection, it will protect us if no one's become –"
She stopped talking, turning on her heel and running for the basement.
"Jesus wept," Bobby said tiredly, turning to the radio.
Dean looked down at the pile of bodies that were heaped in front of the gate. The croaties were just throwing themselves into the cross-fire. He wondered briefly if the idea was to make a big enough heap so that some of them could climb over, but that didn't seem to be the plan. There didn't seem to be a plan.
The radio crackled beside him, and he picked it up. "Yeah?"
"Dean, they're infected with smallpox and plague, you have to burn them. Burn all of them," Bobby's voice came out of the speaker loud and clear. Dean stared at the attacking croaties in disbelief.
"Smallpox and … plague?" he repeated.
"BURN THEM GODDAMMIT!" Bobby yelled into the mike, his fear palpable over the airwaves. "NOW!"
"Right." He put the radio down and looked at the people standing back from the gate. "Michael, Tom, get a truck, get the flamethrowers, get the crossbows and quarrels and a couple of cans of gas," he snapped.
The two men turned and raced down the drive, everyone else drawing back further from the fence and the bodies of the croaties that were scattered along its length.
He looked at the fence. How contagious was the fucking plague? How did it infect? So far as he'd seen, no one had gone near the croaties, alive or dead, but if it spread through the air … he shut the thought down. He needed a shitload more information to protect everyone.
Kim looked at Alex as she passed the doctor the boxes. "I only got a couple of hundred doses, I didn't think it was a high danger."
"How many people are vaccinated against smallpox here?" Kim asked, taking the boxes.
"Not many, not any more," Alex said, frowning. "I got a vaccination to go to South America, when I was eighteen." She lifted the sleeve of her shirt, dragging it up to the shoulder to show the small, round puckered scar there. "But most people, it hasn't been endemic to the US for over sixty years."
Kim nodded. "We'll start with the vaccinations, absolutely everyone. If we can burn every body, and give the tetracycline to anyone who might have been exposed, I think we've got a good chance of avoiding infection."
"Every camp can be quarantined effectively, until the incubation period is finished," Alex added, lifting the boxes of vaccine down onto the cart.
"Is there any chance that the … uh … horseman, Pestilence, could've changed the parameters of the disease?" Kim asked awkwardly. The two old men had sprung that on her and she still wasn't sure if she believed it, although the croaties presence alone was a compelling argument in their favour.
"I don't know much about the Horsemen, Kim," Alex said, counting through the boxes she'd loaded. "Jerome and Bobby really are the experts. It's possible, I guess."
"We'll have to run the bloodwork if anyone does become infected, to be sure," Kim said, half to herself. "Do we have that equipment here?"
"Some, Renee set up a simple lab," Alex said, pointing down the hall of the basement. "She wanted to be able to do a few things."
"Good, that's a start," she said, looking at the boxes. "We'll both have a shot of the tetracycline. We're both vaccinated against smallpox so we'll have to take the vaccinations and the doses to the other camps." She looked around the crowded store room. "Gloves, masks, do we have clean suits?"
"Not to CDC standard," Alex said shortly, gesturing to one side of the room. "Just normal infectious ward suits."
"They'll be alright provided the infection hasn't spread to anyone's lungs."
"We won't be able to tell that," Alex said, looking at her.
"No." Kim nodded, picking up a box of the thin suits. "We'll have to hope."
Rufus looked down at the two women, shaking his head. "Give me a shot, goddammit, I've had the pox vaccination, you're not going anywhere on your own."
Alex tuned out the argument, looking out over the porch railing. Everywhere she looked, the sky was filled with curling columns of black smoke, and she was grateful that the small breeze was coming from the lake, taking the smoke and scents that rose with it north into the forest. All three camps were burning the bodies that had fallen outside of them, and the remaining croaties still attacking were being hit by pitch-soaked quarrels, or molotovs, glass bottles filled with gas and stuffed with a cloth rag to act as a wick, lit and thrown at them from the perimeter walls. They would be lucky to see out the attack without setting off a forest fire, she thought uneasily.
"Alright, let's go," Rufus said, rubbing his arm furiously where Dr Sui had given him the shot. Alex followed him down the porch steps to the truck.
Eight hours later
Boze stared out through the window. The sunset had lit the mirror-smooth surface of the lake in a fiery shade of red, darker than usual as the near-horizontal light passed through the smoke that still clung to the camps and forests. It gave the unsettling impression that the lake was on fire. He turned around and looked at Dean, Emmett and Bobby, shaking his head.
"Well, the good news is that we've run four sweeps from Tawas to the other side of Lake Solitude, and we seem to have gotten them all," he said, wiping a grimy over an equally grimy face. They all looked the same, the soot and smell of the fires over their skin, their clothing.
"And the bad news?" Bobby asked unwillingly.
"A few changes to the croaties. Firstly, we threw holy water over them – zero effect. Whatever the demon component of the virus was, it's gone now. They don't react to holy water, salt or iron so all our protection is worthless against them getting into the compounds or houses if they can find a way into the camps. Secondly, Stu Redman was on outer watch. He got caught on the tower to the south of the compound. He took a lot of them out but they got him before we could get anyone out there. He was dead, clinically, physically, dead as a doornail, but he got up when we got there and started coming after us."
"So we got real zombie action now?" Rufus asked, with a snort. "We can't exactly nail 'em to their grave beds."
"Headshots work, but it takes a few," Boze said. "Gotta make sure there's nothing left of the noggin." He drew in a deep breath. "Also, looks like the croaties don't need blood to blood transfer anymore," he added, leaning against Bobby's desk. "Mark Farrell got bit by one on the sweep. Took fifteen minutes for him to turn."
Kim Sui looked at him carefully. "You killed him? That wouldn't show us if the bite could also transfer the smallpox or the plague via body fluids, the incubation periods for both is much longer."
Jerome frowned. "Plague usually transfers that way, doesn't it?"
"It can, unless the lungs are infected. In which case a cough can be enough to transmit the pneumonic variation. And the incubation for that is much faster, twenty-four hours."
"Awesome," Dean said, looking from her to Bobby. "And the hits just keep on coming."
"They're all dead, Dean," Bobby said dryly, turning to look at Kim. "So long as we burn the bodies, wipe everything down, make sure no one touches nuthin', keep anyone suspected of exposure quarantined for the next couple of weeks, we're all right, aren't we?"
Kim nodded slowly. "Generally, yes. If there are no other variables we need to worry about."
"We found a dozen of the bodies in the lake," Emmett said, looking at her. "We got 'em out and burned them, but Tawas and Sable pull their drinking water from Lake Tawas – are we going to get infected from it?"
"I'll get samples, and check them," she said briskly. "In the meantime is there another water source that you can use for drinking? No washing, no laundry, until I've checked?"
"Yeah, both camps have wells." Emmett glanced at Boze, who nodded. "We'll boil it first, just to be on the safe side."
"That's a good precaution anyway," Kim agreed.
Dean looked at Jerome. "You think Pestilence sent them here, deliberately?"
"I don't know how he could have discovered your location, but yes, that's what it seems like to me," Jerome said.
Dean looked at Bobby. The older man shrugged. "We sent three people out to die, maybe someone found 'em," he said uncomfortably.
"But chances are, he's looking for me," Dean pressed.
"After Wichita, I'd say we're all up the hit list, Dean," Rufus countered calmly. "In any case, we're going to have to double the guards now, every watch is a pair. One to shoot, one to call in. It looked like Stu was so busy shooting them he couldn't spare the time to call in."
Dean nodded. "We need to go on another run asap? Med supplies, more vaccinations, the lab stuff you wanted?" He looked at Kim questioningly.
"Yes, I have a list drawn up, Alex thought that –" She stopped talking as the lights went out.
"What the fuck?" Dean pulled out his flashlight and flicked it on. "We miss something?"
"Must have," Jerome lit the candles on the desk.
Everyone in the room turned fast as a piercing scream came from the back of the building, followed by a crashing and banging.
"That's the basement door," Dean snapped, striding to the door and opening it. "Cas, with me, Rufus, Emmett, get everyone you can find, flamethrowers, meet me down there; Boze, check the perimeter with the rest, make sure they're not on the fucking front porch!"
Bobby watched them race out, looking at Jerome. "Guess we'll stay here," he said sourly, pulling his shotgun from the chair frame and tossing a handgun to the other man. "Might not kill them, but it should hold them long enough for someone to burn 'em before they get to us."
"Blackout?" Michelle asked as the lights died in the small store room, setting down the box she'd just picked up.
"We don't get blackouts," Lisa whispered. "Is that door open or shut?"
"I don't know."
Lisa's head snapped around as she heard the scream from the basement hallway. She stared helplessly into the darkness, unable to see Michelle who'd been standing no more than three feet away, or her own hand in front of her face.
"Look," Michelle whispered and Lisa looked around, seeing the thin beam of light playing down the hall. Answered the question, she thought. Door was open.
The crash and splintering noise of wood being smashed apart galvanised both women into action. In the narrow hallway that ran between the store rooms, they met Merrin, Chuck and Carolyn, her arms around Prudence and Taylor, eleven-year-olds Alan and Ben staring wide-eyed at the noise. All of them were down here to sort through the supplies that the other camps had requested for the quarantine period.
"What's going on? Did we lose the genny?" Merrin asked them. "We heard a scream."
"We're under attack," Chuck said, turning and pushing the women and children ahead of him. "They must have missed some on the sweep, I don't know, but we've gotta find someplace we can hide, someplace we keep from being noticed."
The sound of footsteps, rushing down the basement steps from the outside door was very loud in the disorienting darkness and they ran down the hall, turning at the end, heading for the deepest rooms where the vegetables were stored. From behind them, there was a sudden volley of gunfire.
Chuck felt himself shoved from behind, a wave of putrid odour washing over him. He yelled out as he fell forward, the flashlight smashing as it hit the floor. Rolling to the side of the hall, his arms over his head as feet stepped on him, he forced himself to his feet, bracing his back against the wall and turned as a powerful light hit him from behind.
"Chuck, stay out of the way!" Dean yelled, Chuck catching a glimpse of his face and the angel's behind him as they raced past. He saw the flash of the gunfire outlining the corner of the hall, heard screaming and snarling and a dozen shots fired in quick succession, then sobbing in the sudden ringing quietness when the gunshots ceased.
"Everyone alright?" Dean's voice was clear and loud down the hall. "Lise? You okay? You kids, you get hurt? Did they bite you?"
There was a murmuring dissent, and Chuck straightened up against the wall, his fingers checking over his clothing, over his skin, for any tears, anywhere that he could have been infected. Bruises he had in plenty, he thought, wincing at where the croaties' feet had landed on him, but he couldn't feel any telltale trickling liquid.
Not that it helped much, he thought shakily. If the croaties had passed on smallpox and – or – the plague, he'd still be dead in a couple of weeks, or less.
"Everyone gets quarantined. Doc's got vaccinations for smallpox and shots for the plague. So long as no one's infected with the croatie virus, we'll be fine," Dean said reassuringly, glancing back over his shoulder at the angel who was bringing up the rear. He wasn't a hundred per cent sure of that, but it sounded better than saying he didn't know.
There was a low chug from somewhere outside and the muted roar of the generator started, the lights coming back on in the basement as they made their way to the stairs to the house.
Kim looked at them carefully as they came up. "That's where they broke in?"
Dean nodded. "Went after these guys and turned around and came after us when we showed up," he said quietly. "Vaccinations all round, I guess, and the shots, and we all stay together for a while?"
She nodded, glancing at the frightened faces of the women and children and back to him.
"You first, show them how easy it is," she said, meeting his eyes. He held her gaze steadily, ignoring the increase in his heart rate and sitting down on the stool she pushed out for him.
"Sure, nothing to it," he said, his voice only a little higher than usual.
She was gentle and the vaccination was nothing, a scratch on the top of his arm and a small dressing over it. If the tetracycline hadn't hurt like a goddamned sonofabitch, he would have been able to pass it off without turning a hair. As it was, it was only the self-discipline of years that kept his jaw locked tight as she finished the injection and told him to hold the cotton ball tightly against it for a few minutes. She glanced at him, and smiled.
"Gunshot wounds you're fine with, but needles make you sweat?" she asked him softly.
He looked away and shrugged, getting up and walking from the table, leaning against the wall as he watched the rest lining up.
"How long do we stay locked up?" Chuck asked him, holding the ball against the needle hole as he got up from the stool and walked over to the man and angel.
"Boze said that the croatie virus was turning them fast now, fifteen, twenty minutes and we'll know about that," Dean said. "The other two take longer to show up."
"Could you do the other one?" Lisa asked Kim, looking at her right shoulder gingerly. "I got slammed into a wall and it's really tender."
Kim nodded, going around her and lifting the sleeve of her shirt. "You want me to take a look at it?"
Lisa shook her head. "Just a bruise, I think," she said, closing her eyes as Kim scratched her skin with the vaccine. "Not much you can do about it."
By the time Merrin had the tetracycline shot, more than twenty minutes had passed. Dean looked around at them, no one going crazy and attacking anyone else. "Well … that's reassuring."
Chuck nodded. "Where are we staying?"
"Dining room," Kim said. "The others have put cots in for you and taken everything else out. Less to burn if someone is infected."
"Good to know," Dean said dryly.
"You need to put on gloves, masks, booties and a coat," Kim told him, pointing at the boxes on the table by the door. "We'll keep you as sealed off as possible from being able to touch anything or interacting with anything. I'll culture the blood tonight, and I should be able to give you some kind of answer tomorrow."
They walked down to the dining room, as covered up as possible and heard the lock turn behind them. Plates of food and bottles of water were spread over a couple of crates in the centre of the room.
"Room service," Chuck commented weakly. "Makes up for everything."
"How'd they get in?" Bobby snarled, turning to look at Rona and Ty. The two hunters shook their heads.
"Not through the gate or the fence," Rona snapped back. "Rufus tracked them back to the lake's edge."
Rufus nodded, looking at Bobby. "Can't be sure because the tracks stopped at the little beach, but they probably waded around from the hook while we were fighting the others."
"No wonder the others just kept coming into the kill zones," Max said softly. "Just decoys."
"Look, I realise the virus has mutated a bit, but that's … I mean, that's planning, that's way beyond what the croaties used to be able to manage," Emmett said uneasily. "Sneaking in here, looking for a specific target – am I the only one who's getting' chills from this?"
"Still think that Dean isn't the target?" Jerome looked at Rufus and Bobby.
Neither of the older hunters said anything.
"Doesn't matter who the target was," Ellen said briskly. "And it doesn't matter how well they can plan and hold the blood lust down now. What matters is that they're all dead and been wrapped up and burned, and the basement cleaned and we should be done with it, right?"
"Until the next bunch Pestilence sends at us," Jerome pointed out gently. "He won't stop, not if he's after Dean for killing his brothers."
"That's not the only problem," Alex said from the sofa. "Castiel said that he felt Michael, on this plane, over the past few weeks. He thought it means that Michael has been looking for another vessel."
"There are no other vessels," Bobby argued, frowning at her. She shrugged, gesturing at the door.
"Take it up with Castiel, Bobby," she said. "I'm just passing along the message."
Jerome nodded. "The point being that if there is another vessel, Michael can resume opening seals."
Dean felt his eyelids dropping again, and he sat up straighter, pushing his back against the wall and looking at his watch.
Two a.m. Long day.
He glanced around the silent room. The outside lights were on, spilling enough ambient light into the room for him to see the outlines of the furniture, the shapes of the sleepers. The children were grouped to one end, the four cots close by each other, all of their occupants motionless, although he could hear their quiet breathing. Chuck and Cas were to his left. Lisa, Michelle, Carolyn and Merrin were grouped on the other side. He didn't have to keep watch, he thought wearily. It just seemed like a prudent thing to do, given the surprises of the last twenty-four hours.
He repressed a yawn and stared at the squares of dim light marking the windows. Emmett had filled him in through the closed door on what had happened up here. He'd found two of the croaties, their hands closed around the live wires from the generator to the inverter that powered the house, extra crispy. Taking out the power like that, that hadn't been typical croatie behaviour, he thought vaguely. That had been … organised … planned … he didn't think the croaties had the ability to hold down their crazy for long enough to come up with something like that.
Unless of course the creator of the virus had planned it that way. Had designed the virus to slowly return the ability to think and override the blood lust that drove them … his eyes widened slightly as the implications of that sank in.
The sound was barely a whisper in the quiet room. Just the brush of fabric over the polished wooden floor. But out of place.
He was on his feet and reaching for the light switch, seeing her face twisted up in rage, as she fell across Carolyn's cot, fingers hooked into claws, reaching out for the boy who was sleeping in the next cot.
"LISA!" Dean roared, and everyone woke.
Lisa turned on her knees on the redhead's cot, backhanding Carolyn as the woman sat up, blinking at the brightness of the light. Carolyn fell back and Lisa launched herself toward him, the woman she'd been, the woman he knew, gone.
"Mom, no!" Ben rolled off the cot, his fingers scrabbling through the air as she moved out of his reach, stumbling to his feet.
"Ben, stay where you are," Dean said sharply, watching her carefully as she slowed down, the .45 automatic in his hand and pointing out at her. Her eyes were red. Bloodshot, or just red, he thought disbelievingly. This wasn't happening, he wanted to shout out. But it was.
"Gonna shoot me, Dean?" Lisa growled at him, moving around the crates that had served as the room's table as he followed her with the barrel of the gun. "Why not? You want to, I know you do."
"No, I don't," he said tightly. He didn't, god he would've given anything not to have been there, not to be here. But he would have to, he thought, a rush of despair rising up through him, a tornado of razor blades, cutting him into pieces. There wasn't a cure. There wasn't another way out.
"Sure you do," she insisted, stopping suddenly and straightening up, the red dying from her eyes as she looked at him almost calmly, almost gently. "This is exactly what you wanted. No one to hold you back, Dean. No one to make demands on you. No one to make you feel bad for not loving back."
"No."
"Mom?" Ben took a step toward and Dean's gaze flickered to him.
"Ben, stay back!"
"Dean, it's Mom!" he said, looking at the man pleadingly. "She's not a croatie. Please! Dean, please, look at her eyes."
Lisa smiled at him, turning to look back at Dean. "Yeah, Dean, look at my eyes."
She turned in a blur, her arm stretching out for the boy and Dean pulled the trigger, the sound of the shots drowning out Ben's screams, drowning his own, trapped inside his head, as he watched her fall to the floor.
They found the bite mark, deep and torn open on her shoulder. Dr Sui examined everyone else, Renee assisting, for any bites, cuts or tears in the skin. She'd been the only one.
"How the hell did they know about her?" Bobby asked no one in particular, his fear and anger for Dean held down by a thread of control.
"From whoever it was that told Pestilence the location, I presume," Jerome remarked, picking up his glass of whiskey and sipping it. "It wasn't a secret."
"I hope they're in Hell, frying their damned asses off!" Bobby fumed helplessly.
"I would imagine they've had it worse than that," Jerome said.
Renee touched Alex's shoulder gently, and she turned around to look at her.
"I'm taking Ben and Alan over to Tawas," she said, taking the cup of hot coffee Alex poured her gratefully.
"How's Ben?"
"We had to sedate him," Renee said softly. "He was hysterical, understandably I guess, but Merrin said he was screaming at Dean over and over and she didn't think Dean could take it anymore."
Alex nodded. "It would be better for Ben to get right away from this place."
"Yeah." Renee finished the coffee in a long swallow and put the cup down.
"How's Dean?"
For a moment, Renee didn't say anything, just looked at the cup on the counter. "I don't know. He's … locked inside himself, I guess. Not moving. Not speaking." She looked at Alex, her mouth twisting unhappily. "Shock does that, but it's more than shock."
"Have Bobby or Rufus tried to talk to him?"
"Yeah, Cas too. No luck for any of them," Renee said. "I thought you might …?"
Alex looked at her uncertainly. "He won't talk to me, Renee. Not if he can't to Bobby or Rufus, or Cas. It might be better to leave him be for a while."
"I'm not sure that is the best thing, Alex," Renee said, looking around the kitchen. "At the moment, he's trying to deal with it. It wasn't his fault, there was nothing he could've done differently. Merrin told me that she went for Ben, deliberately, as if she knew that would make him shoot her." She shook her head slightly. "Failing to kill him, would a croatie think that this kind of torture was the next best thing?"
"I don't know."
"What I meant to say was that he could go either way right now. Accept that there was no choice and forgive himself – or – or not," she said. "He needs someone to help with that."
Alex thought of what she knew of him. He would take responsibility for this because he took responsibility for everything, she thought, her heart contracting sharply. Because it was one of the core things about him. She didn't think anyone was going to be able to talk him out of that. And he didn't welcome anyone prying into the way he thought or felt. Not even about little things, certainly not about something like this.
Her imagination gave her a vivid re-enactment of what might've happened, and she closed her eyes tightly. Ben's accusations would be brands on his soul. And Lisa had been his partner, the mother of his child. There was just no way in hell he would be able to talk to anyone about it now. Probably not ever, she thought bleakly.
"I don't think so, Renee." She shook her head. "I don't think he can accept that kind of help."
Renee looked at her for a moment, then nodded, turning away. "I've got to get going."
"Be safe," Alex said automatically, picking up their cups and carrying them to the sink.
Two Days Later
"Alex, can I talk to you for a minute?" Bobby turned his chair around on the porch and she nodded, following him to the corner of the house. He pushed his cap back on his head, looking out over the railing to the lake beyond and Alex waited.
"It's about Dean," he said slowly, turning his head to look at her. "What happened, you know it's eating him, from the inside out."
"Bobby, both Renee and Rufus have already asked me this," she said, pre-empting him. "It won't do any good. I don't know why you think it would."
"He's got a soft spot for you, Alex, I know you probably haven't seen it, but we have," Bobby said, looking at her pleadingly. "He might listen to you, might let you in enough to tell him that he's not to blame for this."
"I haven't seen it," she said quietly. "And he won't – don't you get it, don't you understand what he's feeling?"
He looked up at her, his expression slightly puzzled.
"Don't you people know him at all?" she continued, looking away. "What happened, it's never going to okay for him. He knows he had to do it. He probably knew that from the moment he saw that she'd turned. But that doesn't change the fact that it was him pulling the trigger. She was pregnant and in love with him and her son was right there. He can't talk about that, Bobby. He can't deal with that, not now."
"You do know him," Bobby said, a little astonished. "Or is that some kind of psychic feeling you're getting?"
She made a noise in the back of her throat. "No, it's not a psychic thing. It's a human thing. Nothing is going to make this forgivable. Or easier. Just time, and even that's a big maybe."
Ellen walked on to the porch behind her. "You might be right, Alex, and forgive me for noticing but it seems to me like you've got some experience with this."
Bobby watched Alex's expression freeze and wished he could still move his legs, just enough to kick Ellen for pushing so hard at a time like this.
"I don't," Alex said shortly. "Just know enough to know that this isn't a car accident or an accident of any sort. He might've been able to deal with someone else killing her. But …"
"My point," Ellen said. "We need him. He's the only one who has any chance of getting through to –"
"To, uh, taking out Lucifer," Bobby cut her off abruptly. "We need him whole and functioning, Alex. And he's not that now."
Alex looked from Bobby to Ellen. "You might have to accept that he might not be whole and functioning for a while."
"Alex, I know you care about him," Ellen tried again, softening her tone.
Alex turned away from them, leaning against the railing, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her face stony. "If I try, will you leave him alone?"
"Yeah, if you can't get through, we'll leave him alone," Bobby said with a sigh.
"Alright."
The interior of the garage was gloomy, the shelving and racks, tools and machines looming like half-seen monsters in the dim light. Dean packed the trunk by feel mostly, knowing where everything went, his hands putting things away, fingertips brushing over well-known shapes and textures, finding the places that it all belonged.
He looked around as the shadow cut the light from the doorway, turning back as he recognised the silhouette standing there.
"Hey."
"Hey," Alex said, walking into the garage, stopping beside the car. "Kim said that you were going out on a medical run."
He nodded, settling the bags of salt in their trays, smoothing them down.
"Where are you going?"
He held up the false lid, lifting the shotgun aside and setting it in its place and dropping the lid. "I'll start with Grand Rapids, have a look through Detroit if that doesn't have everything on the list."
"Alone?"
Lifting the gear bag into the trunk, he glanced sideways at her. "Yeah, alone."
"Aren't you the guy who told me that running and hiding never works?" she said lightly, forcing herself not to jump as he slammed down the trunk lid.
"What makes you think that's what I'm doing?" he said brusquely, walking away from her, up the side of the car to the hood.
"It's what I did." She walked slowly up the opposite side of the car after him.
"Yeah, well, I'm not you."
"No, you take a lot more responsibility than I ever did," she agreed, stopping at the corner.
Dean leaned on the frame, looking down into the engine bay. "Alex, I know you think you're trying to help, but stop, okay? Just stop."
"I don't think I can help you, Dean," she said slowly. "I don't think anyone can."
"Good, we're on the same page," he snapped, staring at her. "So how 'bout leaving me alone."
"If it were up to me, I would," she said honestly. "But you have a lot of friends who are genuinely worried about you. They're worried that you're looking for a way out of the pain that won't look too much like suicide."
He drew in a deep breath, his eyes closing briefly as pain, and anger and the fear that was driving it inside, behind his walls, surged up through his chest and into his throat. They all thought it was something that could be fixed, something that could be made better. Ellen and Bobby, Rufus and Cas … and now Alex. He struggled between not wanting it to let out those feelings and hurt her, and not caring if it did. What was one more let down, he thought savagely. At least she would walk away from it.
"You think that's what I'm looking for?" he said finally, keeping his gaze on the carburettor.
"I think that you want to find some action, take some action, because you can't bear the thoughts in your head," she said hesitantly. "I think that you aren't as careful as you would've been, before."
Inside himself, he flinched back at her words, nailing him so accurately. He knew that he was looking for a release, for violence and mayhem, for something to turn the vitriol in his head away from himself and onto something else.
That knowledge brought a deep burning shame, that he wanted to escape that way, that she'd seen it, and he turned around, his voice low and hard and angry. "Don't talk to me as if you know what's happening inside my head, Alex. You don't. You ever kill someone close to you?"
She looked at him and he saw an expression flit across her features too fast for him to decipher. It rang an alarm bell in him though. She dropped her gaze and shook her head.
"No, I haven't."
"Then you don't know shit about what's going on with me," he snapped, forgetting the fragmentary expression he'd seen. "I don't quit and I'm not running. I'm not like you." He hesitated as he saw her face freeze up, cringing away from him, the second's fleeting satisfaction at finding a way to hurt her twisting his gut.
"I have a job to do, it's just the one big job, really. And I'm gonna do it. I have to," he continued. "I'm not going to check myself out or give up until that job's done. So you can save the heart-to-heart bullshit. Just leave me the hell alone."
"You got it," she said, her face stiff as she turned away.
He watched her walk out, wiping his palms on the legs of his jeans irritably, leaning his forehead against the edge of the raised hood, sucking in air that felt like it wasn't getting down deep enough. She wasn't right, he told himself, ignoring the knowledge somewhere deeper, that it was a lie. He wanted to get the fucking job done. That's all. And he didn't want anyone around who might get hurt because of him, who might die because of him. No one else.
He knew what he looked like. He hadn't slept and couldn't eat. When he closed his eyes, he saw the flash from the end of the gun over and over, heard Ben's screams over and over, saw Lisa drop to the ground, the pulped and bloody mess next to her son's feet all that was left of her head … over and over and over. Whiskey wouldn't drown out those screams or wash away those images and he couldn't afford to take anything stronger, not that it would've done much anyway. That moment was locked inside, along with the rest of the memories that he'd never been able to rid himself of, and he would be reliving them for the rest of his life, a crippling punishment that had no end.
The Impala was nothing more than a patch of black against the black of the forest behind it, and he walked down the porch steps quietly, carrying his boots, stopping at the bottom to drag them on and lace them up.
He opened the driver's door and slid in, jumping as he saw the shadowy figure in the passenger seat from the corner of his eye.
"Jesus, Cas!"
"You're not going alone." The angel turned his head to look at him.
"Get out of my car," Dean said impatiently, turning the key.
"No."
For a moment, he was tempted to right cross the sonofabitch and lug his unconscious body back to the steps. He decided against it purely because he'd probably end up breaking his knuckles on the angel's jaw. He could dump Cas somewhere up the road, when the angel needed to relieve himself, and drive off with no further damage.
"Suit yourself." He put the car in gear and drove slowly up to the gate, watching it instead of looking up at Risa and Ty. When it had opened enough to let them through, he hit the accelerator, the car speeding out smoothly.
"Where are we going?" Castiel glanced in the side mirror, seeing Ty on the radio as Risa closed the gate behind them.
"Grand Rapids," Dean said shortly.
"How long will –"
"Not interested in a conversation, man." Dean glanced at him. "Shut it or walk back."
Castiel shrugged slightly, turning to look out the window at the darkness surrounding them. He was here. That would have to be enough to start with.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Dean looked down the list Kim and Merrin had given him, checking off what he'd found against it. Half the damned names were incomprehensible and he had to read them a couple of times to make sure that he'd got the right thing. The equipment was easier. There were still a few things missing. For a second, he wished he'd brought Alex, who would know what they were, and probably where to find them. He pushed that thought down and pretended he'd never had it, swinging down off the concrete dock and loading the boxes into the car. Detroit wasn't that far, and somewhere he'd find a phone book that he could check for supply houses.
He thought about the other part of his plan as he pushed the boxes around on the seat and floor, stacking them in tightly. He wondered if it was suicidal. Jerome hadn't seemed to think so.
"You want to what?"
Dean looked worriedly around the corner of the living room they were sitting in at the squawk of the professor's voice. "Trap Pestilence, and take his ring," he said in a low voice.
"There is a trap for the Horsemen, of course," Jerome said. "Lucifer is using it to keep Death bound. But it's complex and the ingredients are not all that easy to come by. They might be impossible to locate in the circumstances in which we find ourselves now."
"I'll figure that out," Dean said. "Do you have the trap and the list?"
"Yes, memorising all sorts of things like that is required by our initiation," Jerome said distractedly. "Dean, it's not just trapping Pestilence that's the problem."
"No? What is?"
"It's protecting yourself."
"I'll be alright."
"No. You won't," Jerome said forcefully. "This is Pestilence. He gives you a disease, or a hundred diseases, and they're in you. It's not a spell that wears off if you kill him. He could kill you fast or slow just being within a certain distance of you. You need protection against that, to protect the body – your body – against his power."
"Okay," Dean said impatiently. "So do you have that?"
"Not that easy, my boy."
Dean snorted. "Naturally. When is it ever?"
"Precisely." Jerome looked around the room. "For a physical protection spell like that, something permanent is needed, something that goes deeper than just paint on the skin."
Dean looked at him narrowly. "Like a tattoo?"
"Similar, but this is a Horseman we're talking about it, so it will need to be deeper than the standard tattoo. Think cicatrices. Think scars."
"Great," he acknowledged sourly, lifting a shoulder as if he'd expected nothing less. "Okay, so you need to do a bit of carving?"
"Well, not me, I'm not really qualified," Jerome said, looking down at the table. "You'll have to ask either Dr Sui to do it, or one of the nurses. Bobby has most of what we need, I believe. Alex will probably have the rest in the garden."
Dean baulked at that. "No. You can do it, or I can do it."
"Then you'll have to do it."
The cuts had scabbed over mostly, they weren't deep but with the natural herbs and pigments rubbed into them, they were obvious. Jerome had mentioned that the colour would probably fade out over time, but the fine white lines that would be left as scars would stay forever. He didn't care.
There were three ingredients for the trap, however, that they hadn't had, that he still needed to get. And he wasn't sure where the hell he was going to get them.
"You done here?" Castiel looked at him.
Dean nodded as he loaded the last few boxes in. "Detroit, next stop."
The angel didn't comment, just got into the car. Dean felt his mouth lift at one corner. He'd nearly managed to leave Cas behind a couple of times, and the element of surprise for another trick like that had gone.
Detroit, Michigan
The black car cruised slowly down the street, sashaying gently from side to side as Dean tried to read the burned out store signs and avoided the wrecks that were still lying across the road.
The Dragon's Tongue.
He pulled into the kerb and passed Cas the shotgun. "I'm going to be a few minutes in here," he said tersely. "You guard the car."
Castiel nodded, resigned to the post. Not that the shotgun would have much effect on anything that tried to attack him. It would warn Dean of trouble though.
Stepping through the shattered glass of the front door, Dean felt his hopes drop as he looked around the torn apart interior of the store. Everything that had been on the shelves had been swept to the floor, or thrown against the walls, shredded and trodden upon and smashed, mostly beyond recognition.
He walked to the back, and tried the rear door. It was locked. Pulling out his picks, he opened the lock and pushed it wide. It opened into a short corridor, a door at either end and one right in front of him. Turning left, he tried the first door, finding a bathroom. Door number two, set into the centre of the corridor led to a small kitchen. Door number three proved to be the winner, leading to a set of stairs and a basement stock room.
At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped, staring around the room in astonishment. A little bit more than a few minutes, he thought, with a mental apology to the angel waiting outside. The room was floor to ceiling shelving and every inch of the shelves were covered with boxes, large and small, all white cardboard, with neatly printed labels on the outward ends. He might still be looking for the fucking ingredients in the middle of next week.
Lifting the flashlight, he decided to work from the bottom shelves up. He could do the ones above his head with the rolling ladder after the first full pass.
The first thing he'd needed was powdered cat bones. He hadn't asked Jerome why, not wanting another half hour explanation of the esoteric nature of bones. He found it on the third from the bottom shelf halfway around the room. Extracting the box, he tucked into his jacket pocket and kept going. The second ingredient was dragon's tears, a rare and expensive crystalline structure that resembled a tear, but was pure white obsidian, found occasionally near underwater volcanoes and treasured in the magical arts. That box was on the top shelf of the shelving in the centre of the room. The box joined the cat bones in his pocket and he glanced at his watch. He'd been in here for forty minutes. He had to get moving.
The third ingredient was knitbone, and he went twice around the room before he saw the word on a label in front of him, in small italic font under the larger common name – comfrey. Stifling a groan, he grabbed the box and shoved it into his pocket, swearing softly but creatively at Jerome's inability to get Alex to understand what was needed. He knew for a fact that she had a massive comfrey plant next to the swampy ground at the edge of the garden in camp.
Climbing the stairs, he relocked both the basement door and the back room door. It was a useful store, and he'd let Bobby know about it, if he survived the coming task, to get all of the stuff back to Chitaqua.
The angel was still sitting in the car, looking agitated as he came around the front and got in.
"A few minutes?"
"It was a big store room," Dean said blandly, starting the engine. He really did need to be rid of Cas for the next part.
Crossroad of CR 18 and CR 24, Michigan
"What are we doing here?" Castiel looked around curiously. "A crossroads? Are you planning on making a deal?"
"Not exactly," Dean said, pulling to one side of the road and turning off the engine. "Need you to look at something."
The angel turned his head toward him and Dean's fist snapped out, hitting Cas on the point of the jaw, driving it back toward the nerve centre behind the ear, just enough to knock him out. He rested his fingers against the side of the angel's neck, feeling the steady pulse against the tips and nodded to himself. It wasn't as bad as the last time, and he wondered again how much of Cas was pure human now.
Getting out, he walked back to the trunk and unlocked it, pulling out the ingredients he'd gotten from camp, adding the three boxes from the store room in Detroit, and lifting the false lid to get the beaten copper bowl from the back corner. He added each required ingredient, in its precise quantity and lifted the bowl down, replacing the remains back in the trunk. Lighting a match, he dropped it into the bowl, waiting for the mixture to burn down to a cool grey ash. Then he pulled out the gallon jug of blood and mixed the ashes into it.
The road was asphalt and the blood and ash mixture flowed surprisingly easily over it. He was worried that he was going to run out of it before he'd finished the entire thing, but the last brush load finished the design exactly and he put the near-dry brush into the bowl and to one side, standing up and looking over the design carefully. It was correct. That was a little surprising as well. Sam had done most of the draughtsmanship in their spell work.
The trap consisted of a very large circle, holding another seven circles. Each circle represented an Apocalyptic seal, Jerome had told him. Pestilence was the third seal, along with Famine. He looked down at the third circle, pulling out the hex bag that protected him from demon sight. He lit the bag and dropped it into the circle at his feet, stepping back and drawing his knife.
The bag burned a bright blue, turning to green as it disappeared entirely.
Las Vegas, Nevada
The Horseman sat up straight in the chair, turning his head from side to side as he triangulated the position of the man.
"He's come out to play," he said gleefully. "And I'm going to show him what pain is."
The demon stood near the door, licking her lips nervously. Tasked with protecting the Horseman, with providing for his every wish, she didn't like the look on his face.
"He has a track record with Horseman, sir."
"Yes, my dear, he does. But not for much longer."
"But –"
"Oh no, no buts," Pestilence said, the smile he directed at her chilling.
"Sir, we're under strict orders not to kill Michael's vessel," she tried again hesitantly.
"Well if Lucifer wants him so bad," Pestilence said, turning toward her. "He can glue him back TOGETHER!"
He disappeared.
Crossroad of CR 18 and CR 24, Michigan
Dean stepped back as a man appeared in the third circle, tall and gawky-looking, broad-shouldered but thin.
"Mr Winchester, the lesser son," the Horseman said cheerfully, a wide, demented grin on his face. He took a step forward and stopped, unable to move out of the circle. Looking down, the cheerfulness vanished and his face was twisted in a fury as he looked up again.
"That's me," Dean said agreeably. "And you're Pestilence, the whiny, sick kid of the family, right?"
"You can't bind me, I'm already held," Pestilence spat at him. Dean watched him twist the ring on his finger around, the pale green stone set into it gleaming slightly in the light from the car.
"Sorry, no throwing your little cook-ups at me today." Dean smiled coldly at him. "Which one of the poor saps we throw out did you pick up?"
"Ah … Jake? I'm glad he made it all the way to Toledo. It wasn't a sure thing," Pestilence smiled at him.
"Jake, huh?" Dean nodded. "No big loss."
"No, he couldn't wait to spill all your little secrets," the Horseman agreed. "And how's your Lisa, by the way?"
Dean looked at him, keeping his face as expressionless as he could. He hadn't been expecting that.
"Out of your reach."
Pestilence smiled widely, looking into his eyes, digging for his pain. "Oh … you had to kill her? Awkward."
"You son of a bitch," Dean said softly, stepping toward the circle.
The temperature dropped and Dean stared at his breath, frosty white in front of his face, the Horseman's breath also condensing in the frigid air.
"Dean, you've been hiding yourself too well."
He turned his head. Lucifer stood at the rim of the largest circle, watching him through his little brother's eyes. The fallen angel raised his hand slightly and Pestilence dropped to his knees.
"Thanks for finding this one for me," Lucifer continued. "He's been running off leash for a few weeks now. Oh, and Sammy says hi, by the way."
Looking at him, Dean forced himself to smile. "Sam, anytime you're ready, man."
Lucifer laughed, turning to the Horseman. "See now, this is why I told you to stay away from him, Sam's big brother just doesn't know when to lie down and die."
He took a step toward Dean. Dean took a step back, keeping his eyes on Sam's face, aware that Lucifer didn't want to step into the trap. Not Sam, Dean told himself as his brother's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"You're not as dumb as I've been led to believe, are you?"
Dean took another step back, following the curve of the circle. "Don't get too comfortable in there, that's temporary accommodation," he told the angel.
Lucifer smiled automatically, but Dean noticed that it didn't reach his eyes, which were still wary. What the fuck did Lucifer have to be worried about him, he wondered remotely.
The light hit them like a spotlight, silver-white, brilliant, sudden. Dean turned his head away, closing his eyes against the brightness. On the other side of the trap, Lucifer did the same, his vessel's eyes more vulnerable than his own.
"It's not time," he shouted out to the light.
The light dimmed down to outline softly the figure who stood between Dean and the fallen angel. "No, it's not. And you will not harm my vessel as I may not harm yours. Not until it is time."
The voice was deep and mellifluous, a warm baritone with a rich timbre. The body was Adam Milligan. Taller. Broader. Older looking, Dean thought. But still his half-brother.
"You have a vessel, Michael. Dean is expendable," Lucifer snapped.
"This is … a substitute only." Michael shrugged. "I'd still like the original."
"Brother against brother, Michael. Even in our vessels. Doesn't smell like sour grapes to you?"
Dean moved around the circle a little further, closer to Pestilence, aware that neither angel was paying him much attention. The knife was still in his hand, the blade flat against the outside of his leg. He crossed into the trap.
"Unlike you, brother, I don't question the Divine Will. I obey. And for all your rationalisations, your excuses and justifications, you wilfully rebelled."
Lucifer's mouth stretched out in a cold smile. "Do you hear yourself, Michael? That on-the-nose superiority? Try this … now that I'm here, how 'bout I tip the odds a little more in my favour." He spun around to face Dean, lifting his hand, the palm glowing a molten white.
"DEAN! NOW!"
The shout came from the car and a blue-white light filled the crossroads, etching every detail into bold relief, every pebble on the road, every leaf on the trees, every line on their faces and lash and hair as the angels were dragged through the banishing spell and sent back to their planes.
Dean dove across the trap, ignoring the skin torn off his hands as he landed next to the Horseman, one hand locking around his thin wrist, the other slamming the edge of the blade across the long fingers that lay flat on the road.
The scream drilled into his ears as the Horseman's fingers were severed, and he grabbed the one with the ring, rolling backwards out of the third circle, and spitting out the blood he could feel trickling down the back of his throat from the pressure bleed. He turned away from the trap, leaving Pestilence inside of it, the Horseman rocking back and forth over his mutilated hand.
Walking fast back to the car, he yanked open the driver's door and slid inside, staring at the angel in the passenger seat. Cas' forearm was dripping blood, his hand still over the sigil drawn on the glass of the window beside him.
"Nice move," Dean said, with a grudging admiration.
"Here to help." Cas lifted his hand and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wrapping it around the cut on his arm. "Can we go home now?"
Camp Chitaqua, Lake Solitude, Michigan
Bobby and Jerome sat on either side of the desk, looking at the ring that sat in the centre of the blotter.
"Took a lot of risks to get this, Dean," Bobby said finally, raising his eyes to meet the younger man's.
Dean looked back at him coolly, silently daring the old man to throw the accusation at him.
"Well, you got it anyway," Jerome said, breaking through the tension between them. "Michael was in your half-brother, you say?"
"Yeah." Dean nodded, sitting in the chair in front of the desk. "Where's Rufus?"
"Handling a supply run," Bobby said shortly. "The slave setup is the same in Boulder. Lotta the folks you brought back know about it."
Dean nodded, chewing the corner of his lip as he thought about the shifting priorities. Seeing Sam, seeing the devil in his brother, that had changed things.
"We've got the key to Jerome's library now," he said slowly. "It's time we got some answers."
"Kansas is a hornet's nest right now, Dean," Bobby said, brows pulling together as he looked at the younger man. "You want to stir 'em up again?"
"No, definitely sneak and peek," Dean said. "But we need more information, and you said it's there." He looked at Jerome.
"It is," Jerome agreed readily. "A shame we're not closer, it would be impossible to bring the entire contents back here, but as Mr Singer has pointed out, the state is dangerous right now. I'll have to go with you, of course."
Dean's brows shot up. "Well, we'll see who goes."
Bobby poured out three whiskeys and pushed a glass across the desk to Dean.
"Alright. How'd you do with the medical supplies?"
"Got everything Kim and Ray wanted. Where's Alex, I thought she'd be inventorying them?"
Bobby glanced at Jerome, neither man meeting the hunter's eyes. "Uh, oh, she moved over to Camp Tawas, a few days ago. Said Ellen was better suited to here."
Dean nodded, looking away. He tipped up his glass, the liquid fire burning down his throat and landing cold in his stomach.