An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 37
"Eeeeeeeeee! They're so cute!"
"Aaaaaaah!" and the smell of smoke.
Eddie popped out of bed, pulled on his jeans and a tee and rushed out of his bedroom. In the livingroom were a sheepish Castiel, just realizing his mistake in not coming alone with the pills; Professor Wogglebug, the pill maker; and Captain Fyter. Down the hall outside of Vladimir's room was the excitable Scraps. The Ozians were just a bit too early to see the newcomer, Victor.
Eddie checked the boys' room. Victor had calmed down and Vladimir was introducing him to Scraps who was still catching and smooshing bits of fiery ash in the air.
With that seemingly under control, Eddie padded back to the livingroom. "Let me guess, Castiel. You got the pills from the professor and word got around Emerald City."
"Yeah, pretty much," Castiel admitted. "We tried to wait, but Scraps just couldn't. Sorry!"
Scraps entered the livingroom. "I like Vladie's Victor. The two of them are so cute together!"
"Vladimir!" Eddie called down the hall. "Fix yourselves some toaster waffles and join us outside." And he led the others outdoors to some Adirondack chairs near the barn.
"New chairs?"
"Yeah," said Eddie. I'm getting actual sit-down-and-chat company now, so I need them. Picnic tables are coming and I'm having an awning attached to the barn...Uh, who has the pills?"
"I do." Wogglebug held out three pills. "One for Viktor to retain his memory when he witnesses your miracles, and basic American English vocabulary, literacy and writing for both of the boys. I understand Viktor has had minimal use of any kind of language, but Vladimir has been so sheltered, he may be missing some useful parts of the vocabulary. It may be few decades out of date on slang terms, but I suspect they will pick that up nicely on their own now."
"So, do the boys get them now?" asked Castiel who noted Eddie nodding. "Do they go well with waffles?" He noted Wogglebug nodding, and then reacting in shock when the pills suddenly disappeared from his hand. "Well, they're in their stomachs now."
"Uh, okay." Professor Wogglebug added, "Now, for the pills to work quickest, the children will need to exercise. It works with adrenaline in their brains. I believe Beau and Scraps have that covered."
Captain Fyter held up a Frisbee. "This will work for starters. We have more American toys for the outdoors as well."
That done, Castiel called Sam Winchester on the phone to find how things were going in the Men of Letters bunker in Kansas.
Sam was on his laptop when he took Castiel's call. "Hi, Cas. We're okay, but I'm watching some people gathered at Eddie's barn here. When Dean gets ready we're driving there to see what is going on. Hmm, they all walked into the woods. I'll know if they are friend for foe when we get there. Just target Baby's back seat when you pop in."
Shortly, the Winchesters were on their way to Eddie's Kansas barn. There were no people in sight once they arrived and Dean stopped the Impala in front of the large barn doors.
Sam scanned the area for impressions of whatever was there. "Okay, supernatural signals from among the trees. No.. they 'are' the trees! Dean, we need to get out of here. They're those tall black shapeshifters like what attacked us at the bunker, and we aren't armed for five of them!"
Dean turned the car around and it sped back down the lane. Sam watched behind them to see the shapes of the trees change and five large geese taking their places and flying down the lane after the car.
"Now the shapeshifters are the geese behind us!" Sam told Dean. "Hi, Cas. Glad you could join us. We're being chased by geese that are actually those black-spewing shapeshifters."
Castiel nodded from the back seat and turned around to watch behind them as Dean sped up the car.
Dean decided it was time to test just how good his new-found aim was. Still speeding, he rolled down the window and pointed his gun back towards the geese, took one quick glance at them and then took five shots. One by one four of the geese dropped to the ground.
"I saw four drop," Said Sam. "I don't see the fifth one."
Thump! The car slammed into the fifth being, in its full inky form stretching up from the lane and over the Impala. Sam could hear its black goo splattering on the roof of the car and down the windshield and down the window on his side of the car. The roof above him began dissolving when Castiel acted.
In a second the three of them were rolling on the ground on the other side of the shapeshifter. Castiel, being the one most prepared, leaped up and took his blade to the monster, slicing it neatly down the length of its body. The black ooze poured from the creature skin until it finally collapsed on top of the car.
"My Baby!" Dean was horrified at the sight of Sam's quarter of the car dissolved away and coated with black liquid. He grabbed a branch and poked it at the mess on the car. "Sammy! Is it dead?"
"Yeah, Dean," said Sammy. "It's dead. Uh, Cas? Should we move all this to outside the bunker?"
"No!" insisted Cas. "The whole purpose of warding Eddie's barn was to redirect beings searching for the bunker to the barn. It worked as it was supposed to. I'll move everything back to the barn."
A thought from Castiel and everything disappeared to reappear beside the barn. And a sixth monster, but with two heads and turned to salt, was standing nearby.
"Is this what those people were?" asked Eddie. He had come through the barn door to find out what Sam had called Castiel about and was immediately under the gushing black goo of one of the shapeshifters. The 'head' of the creature turned to salt the moment the first bit of goo touched Eddie's skin. When the unaffected base of the body began growing a second 'head,' Eddie rushed over and turn the rest of the creature to salt.
"Finally, we can examine one of them." Eddie touched below one of the monster's heads, causing a liquid gap in the body and the head dropped to the ground. "It's hollow." He hit his fist against the body and chucks of salt broke away. It was hollow except for what looked like a string of body organs tethered on each side to its skin. Then looking into the hooded 'face' of the beast, he noticed two round lobes surrounded by a large circle of pores from which the ooze formed long tentacles.
"This one's better," said Sam, and Eddie turned around to see the black body laying over the Impala.
"Oooo, yeah! Much better." Eddie kicked around the soil below the salt creature. "Uh, Sam? Is mine dead?"
"Yeah, it's dead," Sam replied. "Why?"
"It's body is standing but it isn't touching the ground." Eddie stressed his point by running his hand between the salty body and the ground. The dead creature was suspended in the air.
Everyone's attention turned toward the other creature, still laying over Dean's car. Castiel pulled back the slick black skin to show the same organs as the other suspended in the body by the same tethers. The body was hollow and all the liquid was in the very thick skin.
"Soooo...," Sam mused, "the organs make the poison and transfer it through those into the skin? Are they in the stuff they turn into, too?"
With a slight motion of his head, Castiel caused to bodies of the four geese to appear beside them. He sliced one open, exposing in its center the same black organs in the two shapeshifters. "There's your answer. The bodies of the shapeshifters and the bodies they shape-shift into all form around the same organs."
All four of the men jumped when the standing salt creature suddenly dropped to the ground.
Eddie looked back and forth between the two creatures. "I guess turning the one into salt kept it in position without any support. It should have flopped over like the one on the car."
"Pee eew! This one's beginning to stink," commented Dean about the shapeshifter on his car. "What are we going to do with them?"
"I suppose we could save the salt body in the barn. And maybe slice out parts of the other shapeshifter's body and stash them in a secure container," suggested Eddie.
"The parts will have to be frozen," added Sam. "Dean, do we have room in the deep freezer at home?"
"What?" shouted Dean. "You mean with the deer meat?"
"Dean, we haven't hunted deer for a decade. What's in that freezer right now is probably deadlier than this stuff is. Come on, let's cut off pieces of this thing before it rots and have Cas transfer it to the freezer."
Castiel popped the salt creature into the barn cat room in Eddie's barn. And when Dean and Sam carved their choice cuts from the raw creature, they were transferred immediately into the deep freezer in the bunker.
"We'll need to put a sign in there to identify what it is," recommended Sam.
"Well, let's do that before we forget," said Dean, before he turned and was reminded that Baby was out of commission. He sadly shook his head.
"I have the funds to fix her," Eddie assured him. "Also a good body shop, though it's in Indiana."
"Yeah, thanks Eddie," Dean seemed a bit better about the situation. "Well, take Baby and us home for right now, Cas. What've you got to do yet, Eddie?"
"Turn these remains into water and head back home. When I left, two boys and three Ozians were trying to figure out how a frisbee works. Seems none of the five had ever thrown one before. I was laughing at them before I left. I suppose I should go back and help them."