They haul ass to Hawleyville, Connecticut, just off I-84. It takes them about 19 hours straight through, switching between three drivers. (Trix still hasn't proven himself Impala-competent and seems pretty content with the set up, lazy bastard.)
Anael eventually provides them with coordinates that lead them to an aging suburban neighborhood. The area still has power though there aren't any people hanging around at two in the morning. The target house looks like any other on the block. There are a few porch lights on, though none inside the house; lacy curtains in the windows of the ground floor; a portable soccer goal on one side of the lawn, a trampoline on the other.
"Lights," Dean orders. His favorite shotgun now has a modified aluminum-alloy flashlight holder on it, courtesy of Danny. Mer's semi has a laser sight/flashlight combo, as does Trix's. Danny prefers the heft of a Maglite paired with a Walther P99-his '007 gun.' "Nobody goes anywhere alone, we clear the rooms as a team and do not get split up. Clear?"
"Crystal," Danny says. He buckles a rifle to his back and grabs a few extra clips.
"Trix? Trixton!" Trix startles; he's been staring at the house since they got out of the car, brow furrowed.
"Yeah. Yeah, gotcha." He shakes his head and starts choosing his weapons. He's got a blessed machete that will kill just about anything, but he augments them with a gun.
"Get your head in the game, Trix. We can't have you distracted," Dean says, harsh with nerves.
"I won't be," he promises, but his gaze keeps sliding towards the house.
"Alright, this Seal involves 'The Fanatical Family.' Apparently someone has convinced an entire family of crazy people to sacrifice themselves and their kids to 'God' using some sort of special knife." Dean has long stopped being shocked by the level of stupidity people are capable of.
"God being Satan?" Mer says. She glances at Trix, who's usually on top of every horrible joke they make, but he's not playing along. Mer shoots him a worried glance but there's nothing they can do about it short of making him stay in the car and they need him.
The front door isn't locked. Dean makes an executive decision to turn on the lights as they go; might as well use electricity while it's around. A chandelier illuminates the entry way; the long hall runner that leads to the back of the house is bunched up and askew. There's a small den to the left and a dining room off to the right. The remnants of a half-eaten dinner are still on the table. A couple of glasses are over turned, one of the chair backs has broken, and the hall rug is askew.
"There's something very wrong here." Trix can be relied on for sarcasm and general unflappability; his skittishness and paranoia are off putting, adding to the general feel of foreboding.
"Dad, if these people are supposed to be willing..." Mer's starting to get scared, and Danny looks more grim than Dean's ever seen before.
"Yeah, I see it." His instincts are screaming at him. There's a closed swinging door at the back of the dining room, probably leading to a kitchen, stairs to the second floor and a hallway to the rest of the house. The second floor is just a black hole of possible traps. The entire house is silent. "We should go." Trix starts backing out of the room immediately, machete raised. Danny follows after him, the two of them covering each other. Mer slides in behind them, covering her dad's blindside.
A crash and a whimper comes from further inside the house. They all pause, tense and ready for an attack. Trix draws his gun and keeps his machete steady. A low, constant sobbing filters to them.
"No," Trix says. His knuckles are white around his machete. "It's a trap." A tortured scream tears through the air. Ragged around the edges; hoarse and worn. Not the first one. It's coming from this floor and Dean starts down the hallway.
"Dad..." He glances over his shoulder. Mer, Danny and Trix are all watching him. None of them have moved. Mer shakes her head.
"You want us to leave these people to whatever's got them?" he asks. Mer meets his gaze but soon looks away. She squares her shoulders and then steps forward, game face on.
"Of course not."
"Trix? Danny?" Trix looks like he's about to bolt and a small part of Dean wouldn't blame him.
"We're in," Danny says, dragging Trix forward. Dean nods and trusts them to fall in behind him.
They clear a bathroom, a closet, and a side porch; the kitchen is filled with too many shadows but the door swings out, so Danny shoves a couple of blocks underneath it so that if anyone tries to come out they'll hear them coming. That just leaves whatever this back room is. Based on the layout it stretches the width of the house, parallel to the kitchen.
"On three?" he asks Mer, who nods.
Dean kicks in the door. Mer drops to one knee, pressed against the doorjamb, ready to shoot. Her flashlight cuts a swath through the darkness but the beam seems weaker than it should be. Mer's sweep shows nothing unusual.
"Cover," Dean orders. He doesn't move until he feels Danny at his back. Dean steps into the room, gun aimed behind the door in case there's anyone hiding there.
The house disappears.
Dean stumbles, his mind playing catch up with his change of local.
"Dean Winchester." Dean spins around, gun raised, and pumps six rounds into the guy's chest. Human or demon, it should be enough to put either one of them out. The stranger-tall, balding, white guy in an overly expensive suit-doesn't flinch, just brushes his fingers over the holes and makes them disappear. "Now that you've gotten that out of your system. I'm Zachariah. I thought it was time we had a little chat about expectations."
"Send me back." He keeps his gun leveled on the man even though he knows it's pointless. Fucking angels. Anael's always said they'll come for him eventually, that she can only keep them off his back for so long.
"Oh, that wouldn't be in anyone's best interests. Have a seat."
"I think I'll pass," Dean says cheerfully. Zachariah smiles, oily and fake. Dean's legs collapse under him, no longer able to bear his weight. He misses the chair and ends up on the floor-because he has no bones, he realizes in horror.
"I don't make requests." Zachariah pulls the chair around and seats himself in it. "I take it you know what I am, but just in case you're as dense as I think you are, I'm an Angel of the Lord. I'd ask you who's been slipping you information and put those pretty little symbols all over your chest, but we already figured that out. Now, let's talk about your role in this little apocalypse. You and your brother have been meandering through the end days like we have all the time in the world. I'm tired of waiting."
"My heart bleeds for you," Dean says. He struggles to keep his mind blank, all thoughts of good angels and information hidden behind a wall of you're all epic dicks.
"It's time to pull the trigger, Dean-o. Get this party started in true form."
"I'm not starting the freaking apocalypse for you."
"Oh, that's not an issue-we already did that. Granted, not as we'd originally planned, but Heaven, like all good bureaucracies, is filled with redundancies."
"You planned this?" Dean calculates the number of people that have died, the cities he's seen destroyed and-Anael hadn't mentioned that Heaven had engineered this thing. Dean had always assumed the apocalypse was the result of aggressive neglect.
"Of course we planned this, apocalypses don't just happen. No, I've had to get creative to keep this on track. And I do hate creativity."
"What got in your way?"
"Don't you know?" Zachariah asks. Dean really doesn't like the smarmy smile that spreads across his face. "We're about eighteen years behind schedule."
"Mer," Dean breathes, fear crashing through him.
"Mary Winchester, junior model. Who helped you with that, by the way?" Zachariah pulls a silver sword from his sleeve and flips it. It looks simple but there's something quietly sinister about the weapon.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean says. His mind races-both he and Mer are untraceable by angelic means but Zachariah obviously knew where to find him tonight. That means they know where Mer is. And Dean would bet his car that Zach is a vengeful fuckhead who won't hesitate to take out a 'delay' like Mer.
"Oh, come on, Dean. Don't play coy now. Unplanned pregnancies happen to you animals all the time, but not to people as important as you. We watch over you far too carefully for that. Don't get me wrong, there have been a few, because free will is a bitch, but you weren't one of them. No, what really gave away the game was the mother. Do you know how long we've been trying to find little Mary's mommy? What's her name...Karen? Someone's been hiding her from us for years. Not an easy thing to do when the whole of Heaven is looking for you. And I admit, we didn't keep as close a watch on you as we should have, so the question remains-who gave you Mer?"
Dean can't...the angel's messing with his head. Has to be. Mer is not a pawn in whatever game Heaven and Hell are fighting with earth as the board. No more than the rest of them. She can't be.
"You really don't know," Zachariah muses. "Interesting. Someone out there threw quite a spanner in the works with that one. Very tricksy. But not insurmountable and there's a silver lining."
"More time for you to be a douche?" Dean suggests.
"If you don't cooperate, we can always use your darling little girl." Dean jerks towards Zachariah, reaching for a weapon, his protective instincts warring with his physical limitations.
"Pathetic," a new voice says. There's an angel behind him, looking down at him with even more disdain than Zachariah.
"Ah, Uriel. How are things?"
"The abomination and this mud monkey's spawn are fighting." The asshole looks right at Dean and smirks. "The girl is losing."
"Let me go you son of a bitch!" Dean glares and projects as much anger as he can towards the angels. He's never been as good at this as S-the others, but he can pack a punch.
"What's stopping you?" Dean stares suspiciously at Zachariah and then tests his legs. They work again, the bones restored. He scrambles to his feet.
"Dean! Do try to remember that it hurts less if you cooperate," Zachariah says.
"Fuck you." Dean ignores the laughter that follows him out of the room.
***
"Dad? DAD!" Mer charges into the room with reckless abandon, Danny and Trix hot on her heels.
"Holy shit, where'd he go?" Danny shoulders in beside her, gun raised. The room was probably a den or living room but all the furniture has been removed. There are still marks in the plush carpet and detritus scattered over the floor.
"There's a transportation spell on the ceiling." Trix shines his flashlight upward. The spell's burned out, leaving only a charred outline.
"Person specific or first body through the door?" Mer asks, words clipped.
"Can't tell. I'd need to get a closer-" Three demons burst through the opposite door. Black eyes, two female bodies, one male. None of them are phased by the demon-shot, and each demon heads towards a hunter with dedicated focus.
"Shit." Mer flattens her demon's nose with the butt of her shotgun. It breaks the demon's momentum but it gets right back up. There's something odd in how she moves. It's very singular, repetitive. Less fighting and more...brute strength. Almost mindless. Like Ash's rats, throwing themselves at her finger without regard or intelligence.
Danny blows half his demon's hand off but it doesn't even flinch. Danny catches the demon in a sleeper hold. He spins it around until they're facing Trix, who does a superkick that sends his demon flying, both feet planted center mass. The force sends them both crashing to the floor, square on their backs. He flips himself up and runs Danny's demon through with his machete. The demon flashes as it dies, the smell of sulfur filling the air.
Mer uses the demons' mindlessness against it, sweeping its feet from underneath it and blasting its kneecaps away. It squeals and crawls towards her, snarling. She leads it away from Danny and Trix, not wanting to get in their way as they work. She catches movement out of the corner of her eye. There's another demon in the room. White eyes. Fuck.
She barely has time to process the thought when his power tosses her to the side. Her demon goes flying the opposite way, straight into Trix and Danny. They end up in a pile, two demons and two hunters, subsequently swept out the door which slams shut.
The demon turns to her and Mer scrambles to her feet, searching for her gun. She spies it a few feet away and lunges for it, rolls on the ground and comes up on her knees. Aiming at air. White Eyes has disappeared.
Mer backs up until she hits the wall. There's no way her father disappearing and her separation from Danny and Trix are random.
"Hello, Mer-bear." Mer jerks at the sound of that voice, a chill seeping into her bones. Sam stands at the other end of the room. He's wearing a pristine white suit and shiny white shoes, a pocket square the color of blood, hair brushed back.
"A hat and you could pass for one of the Village People," Mer says. Her voice comes out even, which is something considering her racing heart and how much she wants to run far, far away. One of the fundamental rules of hunting is do not show fear. The way Sam smiles at her, sharp at the edges, tells her she's not doing a good job.
"Weak. You can do better than that." He ambles slowly to the center of the room, the picture of unconcerned nonchalance with his hands tucked in his pockets. Mer glances to the exits and Sam's smile sharpens. No way out. She puts some steel in her spine and stands tall. Proud. Like a Winchester. Sam tilts his head to one side and considers her. "How does it feel, knowing you're going to die? I think I've forgotten."
"I'd be happy to help you revisit it," Mer says with forced cheer. Sam laughs and the sound crawls up her spine and settles in the part of her brain that screams danger, run.
"You are not as powerful as me." Sam makes his point by slowly starting to crush Mer's chest from several feet away. She gasps, scrabbling at the wall and trying to breathe. She desperately tries to use her own abilities to combat Sam's but it's like pitting an alley cat against a lion. He watches her gasp with detached indifference. "I should have done this long ago."
"Why...didn't...you?" she pants. Her vision darkens around the edges; she can feel tears gathering in her eyes. The only thing keeping her upright at the moment is the vice Sam's put her in.
"I don't care about you," Sam says and fuck, Mer thought he'd already done all the damage he could. He touches her cheek, tenderly, wipes away her tears like when she was little and had a bad dream. He even smells the same, which is a ridiculous thing to focus on. It's so familiar.
"Atta," Mer breathes and closes her eyes in surrender. God, this is going to end so poorly.Everything feels hyper-real: the feel of his hand around her throat, the wall cold against her back, her ribs bending almost to their breaking point. And she waits.
Sam makes a small noise so inconsistent with what she'd expect she forgets herself and opens her eyes.
His eyes are green. Clear.
"Mer?" He looks confused, almost...scared. The band around her chest disappears. The hand around her throat weakens. Sam's brow furrows and he draws his fingers over the marks he left there, light and apologetic. He makes a low, aborted noise and looks into Mer's eyes.
Mer summons every ounce of power at her disposal and sends him flying across the room. Sam dents the drywall.
Her first attempt to get off the floor fails; pain flairs brightly in her ribs and steals her breath. She presses her hand to the worst of the pain, the compression allowing her to at least move, and scrambles towards freedom. She shatters the door Danny and Trix disappeared through with a thought, though her exit consists of chasing her center of gravity, falling forward in a semi-controlled fashion. She makes it through the house, her only goal to get out and go. The world around her swims because she can't breathe, there's not enough air.
Something hits her, full-tilt, sweeps her right off her feet and Mer screams. The world around her goes cold and swirls away. She thinks she can hear the flap of wings and when she finds the ground beneath her feet again she's somewhere else, lying on her back. Her lungs don't want to work. Maybe she's forgotten how. There's wetness seeping through her shirt and her chest fucking hurts.
"Mer, come on, you're really freaking us out here." She blinks and Danny's in front of her, a finger held in front of her mouth, testing for breath, Trix peering over his shoulder. "Breathe or I'm starting CPR." It takes a moment but Mer manages to take a long, excruciating breath.
"Thank god," Danny says. He puts a hand on Mer's ribs, just below her heart, and it steals her breath all over again.
"Danny! Move!" Trix shoves him out of the way and brushes his fingers through Mer's hair. It's comforting, soothing. She closes her eyes and works at controlling the pain, packing it away and steeling herself against it. She only comes back when Trix's words, the soft susurrous of sound he's kept up this whole time, start making sense.
This time Trix is in front and Danny's hovering.
"Welcome back," Trix says and it's a knife in her belly, ripping through her guts and twisting through bundles of nerves.
"He came back," Mer says, and only then becomes aware of her tears.