"You're still alive," Dean said flatly, "But I don't know if you'll be able to do it again. We have to find that tunnel."

Sam limped along the corridor beside his brother, supporting him, trying to ignore his own pain and the fact that Dean's shirt was completely soaked through with blood. Dripping, actually. Making little soft squelching noises as drops of blood hit the floor, one by one, not showing any sign of stopping-

"Stop thinking about it," Dean said finally.

Sam gritted his teeth, caught. "About what?"

"It. You've got that look on your face."

"What look?" Sam asked innocently.

Dean glanced over at him and smiled. "That one. Stop worrying about me, I'm fine."

"Your shirt claims otherwise."

"Like the gauze on your neck, you mean?" Dean shot back, "It's saturated with blood and who knows what other fluids that I've been trying not to notice."

"But you did notice," Sam said, trying to keep the slur out of his voice. His fever was really high now. He could only keep walking for a little longer before he was going to collapse, but Dean would never leave him behind. He needed to make sure they got out first.

"It's my job to notice," Dean said darkly. He stepped out of Sam's hold and wearily maneuvered around a melted body on the floor.

The lights went out.

Sam froze. "Dean?" he called tentatively.

His brother didn't reply.

"Dean!"

Nothing.

Sam swore. He reached out blindly for the wall, and after a moment of uncertainty his fingertips brushed against cool stone.

Sam hesitated, and then ran his hands over the rock wall, trying not to panic. Finally, he let his hands stop searching and tried to calm himself. This could be perfectly normal. It's a rock wall. In an underground government lab. And the rest of the hallway is made of metal…but not…this patch…

His thoughts came to a stumbling halt, and he breathed in deeply. The air was different. Musty. He could hear water dripping softly somewhere.

This isn't the lab.

SNSNSN

"My brother is gone!" Dean yelled furiously into the radio outside the tunnel, "And I have no fucking idea where he is! Now I don't know all the facts, but I do know that you're going to damn well tell me what you know and help me find him!"

"Look…I feel for you. Really, I do. I've never had a brother, but—"

Dean let out a strangled growl. "Shut up!" he shouted, "I don't care about any hypothetical shit, I care about finding Sam, got it? And you're going to help me or I swear to god I will hunt you down."

"Uh…"

"Where are you?"

"Um…"

"I can track anything," Dean spat, "Tracking you down will be easy."

"I know that you can find me," Snake Fist said worriedly, "But Alma can track me easier than you can. She'll kill me, man. I'm already on her bad side cause of helping with Project Origin, but if she finds out I told you where she took Sam, she'll probably flay me alive."

Dean tensed. "You know?" he said, his fists held tightly at his sides, "You know where she took Sam?"

"I…uh…I have a pretty good guess. Look, dude, it's bad. If she took him there, where I think she took him…well, it's not worth it. He's probably already dead."

"Don't you say that!" Dean raged, "Don't you dare! Sam's alive, okay? He's out there, and I'm gonna find him."

"Look, I value your loyalty and all, and it's not that I don't want to help you. But listen man, she melts people. Melts. People. Liquefies their insides. Turns them into a mass of fluid. Goop. A soupy mess. I mean, I really can't stress that enough—"

Dean's head fell slightly and he slumped down beside the radio. "Just…please." He said finally, "Please. You have to help me. I can't lose him, not again. Sam is all I have left."

"Aw come on, dude. This is hardly fair. Look, I helped you get out of the hospital, right? That's what I said I would do, and I did it. I mean…she melts people."

"Please."

There was a pause. "Damn it. If she melts me, I'm going to hunt you down."

Dean glanced up hopefully. "You'll help?"

"…yeah. Shit. I can't believe I'm agreeing to this."

"Where are you?"

"You see the elementary school to your left?"

"Yeah."

"Walk toward it. I'm parked in the lot outside, grey Mini Cooper."

Dean turned and staggered in the direction of the school, gritting his teeth against the throbbing burn in his shoulder. Blood soaked another layer of gore into his ruined shirt. Lightheaded and gasping for air, he spotted the car and slid into the passenger seat.

"You're not going to die in my car, are you?"

Dean lashed out with his fist, catching the man square in the nose.

"Ah! Gah, what the hell!" Snake Fist brought a hand up to catch the blood. His eyes stung. "Come on, man! I said I'd help."

Dean ignored him and leaned back in the leather seat, eyes wandering around the car. There were monitors hooked up to the dashboard, all tapped into the video feed at the hospital. He looked back at the man. "A Mini Cooper? Really?"

Snake Fist scowled. "It's inconspicuous. And it gets good gas mileage."

"It's a girl's car."

"Hey, some of us can't afford to live on credit card scams and pool winnings—don't." he said as Dean raised his hand again, "I'm the one helping you, and friends don't hit each other."

"I'm not your damn friend," Dean said, but lowered his hand anyway. "Now where's Sam?"

"He's where Alma is."

Dean gritted his teeth in annoyance. "She's a ghost. She could be anywhere."

"No, I mean he's where her body is. She'll have taken him to the Tank so she can feed on him."

"The tank?"

"It's where the kept her locked up all those years."

Dean felt a chill shoot through him. "Is she alive?"

Snake Fist smiled worriedly. "No one knows."

"Yeah, that's great, by the way. Killing machine wreaking havoc and you idiots don't even know if she's dead."

"People checked…no one came back to report."

Dean groaned and moved on. "So where is this tank? Is it in town?"

Snake Fist winced. "No."

"Great. Well, what state is it in, then?"

"Uh…it's not in a state. Or in the country."

Dean raised his eyebrows, glaring at him. "What?"

"It's in the Czech Republic. In the suburbs of Kutna Hora."

Dean was silent for a long time. He laughed bitterly, "This just gets better and better, doesn't it?"

"They set up the tank there because of the interference they thought the spirits would cause."

"The spirits?"

"Yeah. They thought that so many ghosts would distort her telekinetic powers, diminish them, if you will. The scientists all said there was no way she would be able to penetrate that paranormal mess while she was contained inside the Tank, and they worked out deals with some important political figures over in the Czech Republic so they could store her there until the replica soldiers were ready for a test run."

Dean rubbed a hand across his temple. "Look," he said, "I admit it, I've lost a hell of a lot of blood. But could you please try to make sense?"

"They kept her in the Sedlec Ossuary, Dean. To put it crudely, it's decorated with the bones of plague victims from the Black Death."

"How many bodies?"

Snake Fist sighed. "Forty Thousand."