Twenty-One

One moment he was sleeping in his hotel room in Kansas City and the next moment Dean found himself lying in the dishevelled remains of his hotel room. The mattress underneath him had been eaten away a long time ago, leaving him sleeping on nothing but the springs.

Dean swore to himself inwardly. It had been a rough couple of weeks since he had last seen both his siblings.

Sam and Dean had finally had that break up that they had been expecting. The trust was no longer there, he couldn't forgive him for what he had done.

Lily was off searching the world on a job for Castiel that she wouldn't tell them about. A normal family relationship between the three Winchesters was becoming hard to come by.

Dean made his way out of the hotel with a frown, it wasn't just the hotel that was destroyed but the city as well.

Everything was broken, gratified or both.

As he walked, his instincts kicked in. Off to his right Dean could hear something smashing, against his better judgement he forced himself to go investigate, trying not to think about how many horror movie deaths had occurred because of someone investigating.

His eyes lit up when he saw a little girl standing in an alley way holding a teddy bear.

"Little girl?" Dean frowned. "Little girl?"

Silence.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

Silence.

"You know the not talking thing is kind of creepy, right?" Dean frowned.

The girl turned around, blood dripping from her mouth.

Dean's jaw dropped as the girl charged at him, a shard of broken glass in her hand as s weapon. He knocked her off her feet and onto the ground in one foul swoop. "What the hell is going on?" he snapped before her saw it.

In large yellow letters above the girl's body was the word CROATOAN.

"Oh crap," Dean gasped.

He turned just in time for several more infected people to come around the corner.

"Double crap!" Dean cried out before he started running. "LILY!" he yelled, preying to his sister to get her feathery ass down here and save him. He went around the corner only to stop when he saw he was trapped by a chain link fence.

A tank sat on the other side of the fence that immediately started firing when the driver saw the infected people.

Dean laughed to himself as he ducked for cover, whoever was saving his ass was playing Do You Love Me by the Contours. Not his choice of music but what the hell.

"Did you call me Dean?" came a familiar voice behind him.

Dean spun around. His sister looked like she'd just come from the snow, she was wearing a bright red parker with a scarf and a beanie. "Bloody hell! Get me out of here."

Lily looked around before she placed two fingers against Dean's head and closed her eyes.

"I can't." She paused. "Shit. I can't even get myself out."

She looked at him and pulled off her outer layers, leaving her just in a pair of jeans, boots and a long sleeved black shirt.

"What kind of angel are you if you can't get yourself out of wherever the hell we are?" Dean snapped. The two of them made their way towards one of the many fences and Dean started working on cutting through the fence.

"Obviously a shit one," Lily answered. "My mojo's been working really good the past few weeks." She tied her hair up behind her head when Dean went through the fence first. She stopped only to look at the sign that said CROATOAN VIRUS HOT ZONE NO ENTRY BY ORDER OF ACTING REGIONAL COMMAND AUGUST 1st 2014 KANSAS City.

Dean stopped beside her. "August 1st 2014?"

"I watch enough Doctor Who to know that time travel always ends badly!" Lily groaned.

Dean leant into an abandoned car on the edge of the road and started to work at hotwiring it. "Keep an eye out will you?"

"Yes sir," she grumbled. Lily leant against the back of the car willing herself again and again and again to fly herself home but it wasn't working.

"Radio's nothing but static," Dean told her.

"That's never a good sign," Lily frowned. "Wonder what the hell happened here?"

"Obviously some demon bastard released the Croatoan Virus," Dean scowled. He grinned when the car started and Lily jumped in the back seat.

The two of them had to be at least a couple hours away from the city before Zachariah decided to make an appearance. It shouldn't have surprised the two of them that he had his claws all over this but it did.

"Croatoan pandemic reaches Australia," Zachariah read from the newspaper he was holding in his hands.

Dean glared at him. "I thought I smelled your stink on this Back to the Future crap." Zachariah looked back at Lily who waved friendly at him. He ignored her. "President Palin defends bombing of Houston. Certainly a buyer's market in real estate. Let's see what's happening in sports-oh wait. No more sports. Congress revoked the right to group assembly. What's left or Congress, that is. Hardly a quorum, if you ask me."

"How did you find me?" Dean asked. "And why can't Lily take us back?"

"Afraid we had to tap some unorthodox recourse of late," Zachariah sighed. "Human informants. We've been making inspiration visits to the fringier Christian groups. They've been given your image, told to keep an eye out for you. And honestly as soon as she answered your call it was hard to resist trapping her here with you."

Lily paused, she pulled her sleeve and groaned when she saw the swirling circle mark burnt into her arm. It was Enochian and it stopped her from using her powers to time travel. Multiple angels would be working hard to keep this spell going. "Asshat," Lily growled at Zachariah.

"The Bible freak outside the motel," Dean groaned. "He what? Dropped a dime on me?"

"Onward Christian soldiers," Lily piped up from the back. "Am I right?"

"That's the only thing we will ever agree on," Zachariah told her blandly.

"Send us back!" Dean demanded.

"Oh in good time," Zachariah agreed. "We want you to marinate a bit."

"Marinate?" Dean frowned.

"Three days Dean," Zachariah informed him. "Three days to see where this course of action takes you."

"What's that meant to mean?" Dean asked.

"It means that your choices have consequences," Zachariah replied. "This is what happens to the world if you continue to say no to Michael."

"Man that guy is a dick," Dean growled when Zachariah disappeared. He looked back at Lily, "sorry to get you stuck in this."

Lily shrugged. "Maybe I'll get to see how awesome future me is," she grinned. "I don't have high hopes that this will teach you the lesson Zachariah wants it to. We should go to Bobby's."

Dean nodded his agreement. "Maybe we can find out where the hell everyone is."