Chapter 20: The King of Hell
Dean took Gabe's slick getaway to heart, grumbling and griping about Sam's "trickster boyfriend" all through the good-byes they exchanged with the others, who were going to drop Hannah off at her dorm and right up until the Impala started and Cas decided to interject.
"Why don't you tell us where we're going? Neither I nor Sam know, and it would be prudent for us to be let in on the secret of the night. If it requires bail money, I'm afraid I'll have to opt out."
Sam snorted from the backseat, where he'd unsurprisingly been relegated to again. If Cas kept this diatribe up, it'd make having to share the space with Ben's car seat almost worth it.
"You act like everything I do is illegal," Dean said, exasperated.
Cas tilted his head and squinted at him; the critical look only accentuated by the spike of ice lightning in his aura.
"My apologies. Only about 70% of your life is marked by illegal proclivities."
Sam did his best to stifle his snort but wasn't successful. Dean threw him a warning look over his shoulder before letting it go in favor of starting the ignition, releasing a victory cry when the engine rumbled.
"We're back in business! Let's get going while the night's still young and Cas is in a relatively good mood."
"I'd be in a better mood if you told us where we were going," Cas remarked as they pulled away from the curb and shot down the street.
"Seconded," Sam added before Dean could brush it off. "Which makes this two against one and it's only fair since we'll have to put up with your choice of music."
"Driver picks the music, and shotgun shuts his cakehole," Cas quoted dryly as Dean rifled through the box of cassette tapes. Ben liked to organize in stacks understandable only to him, leaving his father to deal with the results.
"It's an important rule of riding with me! Let me have my me time first before I explain."
With that, Dean popped in a tape and cranked the volume up, leaving Cas and Sam to exchange resigned, hopeless looks before settling in.
Sam suffered through surprisingly nostalgic rock tracks as the Impala picked up speed (it was always possible to go faster with Dean's lead foot on the gas) and entered the highway. As they streaked pass slower vehicles, he kept his eyes on the auras filling the interior, allowing himself to focus fully on them from the privacy of the backseat.
The blue and green mixed to a point never ceased to fascinate Sam, comfortably meeting in the middle in swirling shades of teal that blended perfectly. Tonight, tension underlined the gradient; the sort of buildup that came when a relationship was on the cusp of evolution. Something would give soon, and while Sam wasn't sure what would be the spark, he knew that things would either go very well or very badly.
Right as he began to notice that they were heading towards the western border of Lawrence (and that never meant anything nothing good), Dean turned down the music, a serious shade of forest green revealing that he was now ready to talk.
"This requires a little backstory for Sammy's sake," he began, turning to look at Cas full-on even though he was driving, a bad habit that he shared with Gabe and would be horrified to know they had in common. "Your sarcastic interjections are welcome."
Cas made a noise that sounded somewhere between pleased and affronted. "As if I'd hold them back when I'm already displeased that I'll be patching you up yet again tonight."
Dean flashed him a megawatt smile of appreciation, causing a shade of blue to blossom so quickly and explosively that Sam politely averted his eyes. Even if he was the only one who could see auras, there was a certain level of propriety he tried to practice when he could.
"Now, about a week and a half ago, Cas and I dropped in at a bar. I wanted to show him the fun side of Lawrence, which you were reluctant about for some reason-"
"Perhaps it was because you picked the filthiest bar on the west side of town."
"It's not that bad."
"Since the story I now know you're trying to recount occurred at this establishment, I think I can say that it is indeed 'that bad'," Cas retorted, complete with physical air quotes that were so awkwardly done that Sam couldn't help but laugh.
"This is going to take forever if you two keep going at it," he said, holding back the "like an old married couple" he wanted to so badly tag onto the end of the sentence. That would just derail them further.
"He has a point. Continue," Cas acquiesced graciously, ceding the bulk of the storytelling to his brother.
"So, at the bar that's not as bad as Cas thinks it is," Dean said, picking up the dropped thread with a thinly veiled prod, "We had a couple of drinks, and all of a sudden everything goes to shit. One second we're chilling in the corner, keeping an eye on the rowdiest bunch for Cas' sake, and the next the whole place feels like it's one tossed insult away from a full-on bar brawl."
Sam could already tell what direction this was headed; flashbacks to the Roadhouse and a patron with an absurd amount of anger starting a chain-link effect into violent chaos.
"Even I was feeling antsy about it, which is saying something since you know how I am about fights outside of the arena."
He knew all too well how Dean fought. Outside of Mayhem Arena, Dean had stringent conditions about how far he went with potential altercations if he even engaged in them at all. It was a code formed due to his CIP and his additional strength as a reminder of his limits. Despite engaging in more hotheaded tendencies, Dean had a strong amount of self-control and knew when to employ it.
The only time the code went out the window was when Dean tried to save someone in need of help. In those situations, he didn't give a shit about himself, and it'd landed him with the more serious injuries that Sam incessantly worried about him getting. It was the reason he'd saved Cas, but Sam feared it was as likely to lead to the end of him as much as his condition would.
"It was Gordon. He'd come in some time after us and was making a big scene at the bar. He'd had too much to drink, and he wasn't pleased about being cut off for the night."
"He looked very sickly," Cas said thoughtfully, "Looking back, he was already far gone on demon's blood."
Dean shook his head. "That stuff isn't worth it. Gordon must've only been on it for a few weeks, but he was totally out of it. He was furious, worked up to this insane level of anger that was somehow spreading to others, and infecting their moods. All it took was somebody touching him to try and get him to leave, and everything went south."
Sam winced. The dark, twisted thing infecting Gordon's aura spreading to others like a disease, churning with artificially created anger that wanted nothing more than to be let loose onto the world, was all too easy to imagine. How much demon's blood did it take for someone to be completely reduced to a shell that only thought of the next dose?
"We had to go out the back, which was a good thing since someone started firing shots," Dean remarked as casually as if he was discussing a bad turn in the weather. "Not the best introduction to the night scene for Cas, but it did give me a stronger link to finding out more about demon blood. Gordon had to be getting it from someone consistently, and it wasn't the Dead Eyes."
"Really?" Sam asked curiously.
"Yeah. Gordon won some high stakes bet with a higher up Dead Eye over something at Mayhem. He got blacklisted out of pettiness, so there's no way he got it from them. I started asking around about him after that night and found out that not only has he been evicted, but that a lot of people besides us are looking for him now."
Cas turned his head sharply towards Dean from where he'd been watching the buildings grow sparser, nostrils flared in agitation and aura sparking with a new round of lightning.
"Is that where we're headed? It doesn't seem wise to visit a man being hunted."
Sam silently agreed. He knew he'd told Dean that finding Gordon could prove useful (that conversation seemed so long ago), but that was when he'd thought they'd be the only ones interested.
If it was just him and his brother, Sam could've soldiered on with less thought given to the gut feeling twisting his intestines in a knot, but they had a civilian addition to their ranks tonight. Cas, for all his strengths, was about the furthest one could get from being a fighter.
"We'll be in and out before anyone even knows we found him first," Dean assured, sounding remarkably convinced considering the circumstances.
"What will we even ask him? Do you really think he'll tell us who his…dealer is?" Cas asked, doubt written all over his furrowed brow.
"Even better," Dean said, aura building up with anticipation that piled high over his head and brushed against the roof. "I think whoever he's getting demon's blood from is the same person that created it."
There was a brief lapse in the conversation where the only sounds were the low thrumming music and the steady purr of the Impala as it ghosted over the road. Outside, the buildings were squatter, skyscrapers morphed into dark warehouses and dreary businesses that the overpass took them over before exposing details could be made out. Pretty soon, Sam knew they'd be leaving Lawrence's official borders and entering the strips malls and motels that made up the last signs of civilization before the highway ran west on its own.
Cas' aura ran through a processing sequence of darker blues nearly indistinguishable from the interior of the cab, pale lightning cutting through intermittently as he sat silently. The motions reminded Sam of how waves receded before every tsunami, pulling back with deceptive calm.
"And what would we do if we got that sort of information?" he finally asked with a cool, flat tone.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," Dean replied evasively, eyes darting to Cas before returning to the road. Maybe a warning bell was ringing in his head because he didn't say the answer that Sam knew was sitting on his tongue, automatic after years of repetition.
We'll handle it ourselves.
However, the non-answer was more than enough of a tell for Cas, who shook his head in disappointment and pointedly looked back out the window. His aura radiated not only deep disapproval but a surprisingly strong undercurrent of fear for Dean.
Sam wondered when Dean would clue in that Cas wasn't being obstinate out of anger, but out of genuine love.
He pulled out his phone to covertly text Gabe while the lovers up front had a silent showdown. Sam didn't want to unduly worry him, but he also knew that it'd be better to communicate something beforehand if only to satiate Gabe's incessant curiosity. Once Gabe got past the worry and concern stage, he was always raring at the bit for information.
Sam: About to go knocking on Gordon's door. Apparently he's started more fights than the one at the RH, and we're going to go talk nicely to him :)
A response came within a few minutes. The accompanying buzz broke the stalemate and drew Dean's unwanted attention.
"Is that him? Tell him to fuck off," he snapped, earning himself a sharp look of reproach from Cas.
"That's rude, Dean. You don't even know what words they might be exchanging!"
Dean made a fake gagging sound and shuddered, jerking the wheel over so he could merge into a lane just for the hell of it.
"I don't want Sammy sexting in my beautiful, innocent car!"
"Not sexting, and you've done so much worse in the very backseat I'm sitting in," Sam said in a dead-pan voice that didn't match the small smile on his face as he texted.
Sherlock: Your ability to imbue foreboding into a single smiley-face makes me nervous…
Sherlock: Also pretty pls don't die on me
Sam shot back an "I'll try my best" and tuned in just in time to hear, "Did you and Lisa conduct Ben's conception in this car?" before tuning right back out with a speed that would've rivaled the current reading on the speedometer.
The motel was situated off the highway, hidden behind a nearly vacant strip mall. It wasn't anywhere that Sam had been before, but the set-up was familiar from childhood. The one-story complex stretched out in a long rectangle, punctuated by the occasional clunker parked outside the peeling doors and dirty, curtained off windows.
It could've been any one of the dozens of motels he'd partially grown up in. The only difference was that this one was right outside Lawrence when the rest had been as far away from the city as John dared to get.
No one was visible in the main office when they swung past it, only looping around when they determined none of the cars out front was Gordon's.
The backside of the motel ended up being notably shadier. None of the lights worked save for the single floodlamp that lit the overflowing Dumpster at the dead end, leaving the area with a disproportionate amount of shadows. A chain-link fence holding off a surprisingly thick strip of suburban woods at the border of the lot added to the claustrophobic feeling.
"I don't like this," Cas voiced, aura fizzling with tension.
"Me either," Sam muttered in agreement, metaphorical hackles raised at the sight of the lone pickup truck parked in front of the room at the very end by the Dumpster.
Trace remnants of Gordon's altered aura clung to it, curling like vipers around the door handle. It was darker than it'd been before, it that was possible as if it'd become more of a void than a color.
It hurt to look at. Sam watched it warily through his peripheral, hoping he didn't look too crazy doing so. Auras didn't come naturally in that light-sucking shade.
"Just five minutes," Dean promised, pulling up alongside the truck. He was either genuinely ignorant to the setting or too jaded from his double life to care about it. Probably the latter.
A lot could go down in five minutes, but Sam didn't say that out loud for Cas' sake. Instead, he made a note of slipping the sleek, leather grip knife Dean had handed him earlier into his boot to supplement the pocketknife he'd started carrying around again in his jacket. Better overprepared than caught off guard.
Gabe's not going to like this one bit.
There was a new bite in the air when they stepped out, but no noise. The highway was almost completely muffled, and the woods were silent behind them. The strongest thing was the smell of putrid reek of trash and diesel from a nearby truck stop, mingling in the air to create a distinctly urban smell.
Sam's gut twanged as he gazed at the room that possibly held Gordon. The lights were on; just visible through the single slim crack in the curtains.
It wasn't hard to believe that Dean could've ascertained Gordon's location through less than savory means; Dean would probably never stop straddling the line between legal and illegal. However, Sam knew that Dean had a reputation for being relatively clean despite his terrifying capabilities, and some people didn't appreciate that. It was a miracle Dean hadn't been ensnared in a situation more dangerous than attempted revenge jumpings in alleys.
What if this is all just an elaborate setup?
Sam chewed on his lip as he watched Dean approach the battered door.
There were too many things off about the situation for him to simply brush it aside as his wariness. Gordon's location just seemed too convenient, right now to the nearly empty motel and quiet night.
"What gives?" Dean mouthed, irked as Sam clamped his hand around his brother's wrist, stopping him from touching the knob just in time.
Sam jerked his head to the side as he dragged him back towards the Impala, Cas trailing after like a confused puppy.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," he admitted, shooting a glance at the door. He could make out the staticky drone of a TV on low volume, but nothing else.
Dean harrumphed, but glanced back at the door with second thoughts, analyzing the situation beyond its surface-level appearance. Cas waited anxiously, gaze jumping between them and the door with growing apprehension.
"You're right," Dean finally said, scratching his chin, "I can't hear anything besides the TV. Do you think he's…?"
He trailed off, leaving the unspoken word to hang in the cold air between the three of them.
"If he is, then we shouldn't be here. This could be a frame-up job against you Dean," Cas hissed, shoving his hands in his coat pockets and stubbornly jutting his chin out. "I say we go, now."
"That seems a little far-fetched," Dean scoffed, but his aura sported an inkling of doubt, the seed of the idea already planted and growing.
Sam left them to argue over it with bent heads. A side effect of the tension between the two must've been arguments because they were getting into it over everything tonight.
Arguing won't get us anywhere, he thought, approaching the door with their voices tuned out and his sixth sense extended outwards.
Sam hadn't been around very many corpses before he'd started working with Gabe on the case. He'd been to just enough funerals to know that dead people didn't retain their auras for long. It all depended on how long they'd been dead and how strong it had been when they were living, but for the most part, he'd determined that auras dissipated within a day, maybe two at most. Auras fed off life and drained away in the absence of it.
It was the only time that Sam saw people the way everyone else did.
Sensing an aura past a closed door was a little tricky, but nothing Sam hadn't done before. The problem was that he couldn't immediately sense what was supposed to be a very volatile and active aura. The remnants left behind on the truck suggested that Gordon had used it sometime that day, which meant that even if he was dead behind that door, he should be able to find him…
There. The aura was dormant, settled like thick molasses in one part of the room. It was a stark difference from what it'd been in life, but Sam found it regardless. Now that he'd pinpointed what was the aura equivalent of a slimy husk, he could tell that Gordon must've only been dead for a couple of hours at most.
The cause could be anything. If Sam stood over a body, the physical signs of death would be more helpful than the residual aura. Besides being able to distinguish if someone went peacefully or violently, Sam was ultimately in the dark. For all he knew, Gordon was either riddled with bullets behind the door or had overdosed on demon's blood; both highly plausible options.
Either way, someone wanted us to find him dead.
As soon as he'd thought it, something brushed up against his internal radar. Auras, more than one, and not in a happy mood from the snatches of emotion he could pick up.
Sam sucked in a breath before whirling away from the door, knife materializing in his hand.
Ambush.
All it took was a look, and Dean knew. They'd been trained to handle danger from what felt like birth, and this wasn't their first time getting caught in the fire.
"Sonuvabitch," Dean spat, head already tilted in the direction of the thicket of woods, picking up the footsteps of the potential ambushers like Sam had picked up their auras.
"What is it?" Cas asked, looking at the woods, blue aura rearing up above him in a conflagration of confusion and concern.
The addition of a car pulling into the motel didn't help. The purr of the engine sounded expensive; too expensive to be caught dead in a place like this looking for a room.
"We got company," Sam said grimly as Dean swore some more and grabbed Cas by his collar.
"In, now," he barked, shoving him unceremoniously into the Impala.
Cas said something muffled that Sam couldn't catch before Dean shut the door on him, but judging by his aura, he was less than happy about being sidelined.
"No way out," Dean said curtly, referring to the car they could hear on the other side of the building. There was only one way into the backside of the motel, and the car was undoubtedly meant to block it off.
"Lovely. How many?" Sam asked, watching the auras grow closer in multicolored flickers reminiscent of swamp light.
"Can't say. Too much interference," Dean admitted, twirling a knife in his hand. Knives were the way the Winchesters rolled; guns got too messy too fast, and they ran out of bullets.
Sam exhaled sharply, letting all the miscellaneous fall to the wayside to focus on the blundering footsteps crashing through the brush and the auras growing clearer and closer. Any second now…
"3 o'clock," he muttered a few seconds before the first man broke through the tree line right where he'd anticipated, and then the fight began.
Fights reduced Sam to a level of consciousness characterized by his ability to see auras. Faces and features took second place to the colors that were far more vital. An aura exposed its owner's thought pattern in a basic facet that Sam used to stay steps ahead, allowing him to read an opponent with unmatched accuracy.
But, his ability was only as good as his reaction time and not even the skirmishes he'd handled at the Roadhouse could completely cover him. Sam had grown rusty, and it showed.
Pain starburst through his cheek, whipping his head to the side. Sam had forgotten how jarring it was to feel a punch right down to his toes and taste blood in his mouth, but muscle memory kicked in before his rattled brain had time to reach.
He lashed out with the handle of his knife, smashing it into the man's wrist (orange aura) and stopping the follow-up punch he thought he would land. A punch to the gut doubled Orange over, and just like that, Sam had come out on top.
"Damned Winchesters," Orange coughed, aura spasming around him as he curled in on himself.
Sam only had time to pant "Get fucked," before another one with a sepia aura dragged him back into the melee with a wild slash that nearly got him on the chin.
Sam disarmed Sepia of his…box cutter (perhaps he'd been informed late about the ambush meet time?) and swung him around by the back of his jacket, heaving him like a bowling ball into another guy that registered as red that was trying his very best to stab Dean in the gut.
They fell in a heap that Dean gracefully leaped over before plastering his back to Sam's, a familiar formation that Sam accepted with habit.
The others immediately formed a semi-circle formation, falling into a natural lull now that the advantage of surprise was lost. All of them looked as if they had experience and carried some kind of makeshift weapon; pipes and tire irons and the like. Their auras, a motley mix of angry, resentful, and high-strung, melded together into a charged atmosphere of hungry anticipation.
Everyone here knows Dean.
"How you holding up?" Dean asked as they circled, catching as much of the scene as they could with their eyes. Sam could hear the bared teeth in his voice; his aura unabashedly thrilled at the surprise conflict.
"Better than you," Sam retorted. Dean smelled of blood already, and not just from his face.
"I'm fine. Watch the bald one; I recognize him from the ring," he replied, lunging out to meet one of the braver ones that came charging forward with a tire iron face on.
Mayhem Arena fighters.
The bald one with a gray aura came striding forward as if he'd heard Dean, singling him out with focus that Sam was forced to return.
Sam ducked beneath the fist aimed to smash into his face, simultaneously delivering a gut punch (bad habit to keep falling back on it, John wouldn't be thrilled) that felt like the equivalent of punching rock.
Ow.
Gray only huffed gruffly before grabbing the back of Sam's jacket and attempting to drive his knee into his gut in return. Tit for tat.
He only managed to clip his side, but that was enough to knock more than a bit of wind out of Sam. The knife he'd managed to hold onto for the whole fight fell out of his hand, and the clatter echoed in his ears. Now he was down a knife, with no air, and a guy swinging him around like a discus.
People released discuses after the wind-up. Sam was treated no less, which ended up being his saving grace. Hitting the asphalt hurt, but it gave him time to reach for his boot.
He'd tried his best to not draw blood with the knives tonight, but they were thirsty blades, and Sam wanted to go home in one piece more than he cared about these guys he only knew from secondhand accounts.
An upward slash forced Gray back with a surprised yelp, giving Sam time to get up and into a proper stance. He planted his leg in the middle of his chest, with the might that had subsequently gotten kicking banned from the horseplay John had encouraged when they were younger, knocked Gray clear off his feet and out of range.
"Dammit," Sam gasped, leg wobbly and lungs protesting for air.
There was only one person that could've corralled this many Mayhem Fighters together for something like this. The expensive car and the too-perfect location sealed the deal in Sam's head, but a moment too late.
He sensed it before he saw it. Two auras stood by the Impala: one Cas and the other Sam had only seen once years ago.
"Alright boys, that's enough."
A hush fell over the lot. In an instant, the atmosphere changed from violent to frozen, the metaphorical pause button pressed to leave nothing but the buzz of the light over the Dumpster, the harsh pants of breath, and groans of pain.
Dean's aura flared out in a roar of incandescent rage and blind panic, more than he'd ever seen in his life. It sent a lurch through Sam's stomach as his brother's excess emotion slammed into him, and he had to take a moment to breathe before he turned to face the devil that had snuck up on them.
Crowley.
…
At thirteen, Sam had feared Crowley and what he stood for the first time he'd met him. He'd never seen an aura so full of artfully controlled malice, much less seen someone get one over John and get away with it. Stealing Dean's soul and threatening his came with ease, and by the time he'd gotten up from their couch and whittled down his cigar to half its size, he'd gotten away with a contract with the Winchester name on it and the first of Sam's crumbling faith in the family business.
Now, Sam held more hate than fear for the man standing so casually by the Impala with a gun to Cas' head. Crowley hadn't changed much since the first (and last) time he'd seen him. His suit and eyes were as dark as ever; his silk tie only a few shades lighter than his aura.
"I'm not a fan of using this, but it's hard to get your attention once you get going, Dean," he sighed, twisting his wrist a bit so that the gun-a custom piece of lacquered black metal-caught the light that lit the Dumpster.
Mad didn't even begin to cover the gamut of emotion coursing through Dean. His aura bordered on feral, swirling around his tense muscles and what Sam could see of his bloodied face in dark shades that barely constituted as green. He looked one second away from using the tire iron he'd divested of the man he had clutched by the collar on Crowley himself, but a thin strand of sense held him back.
That, and probably Cas's face. Sam could see him better than Dean at this angle and was taken aback at how calm he looked with a gun to his head. The only thing that gave away the fear that lit Cas' blue aura up with pale, washed-out shades of grey-blue were his eyes, which were fixed imploringly on Dean.
"Let. Him. Go."
Crowley, to his credit, didn't so much as flinch at the pure loathing dripping from Dean's voice.
"Not quite yet. But there's no need to fear as long as you do what I say. Let's let the boys retreat with their wounded before we chat."
The Mayhem Arena fighters grumbled but didn't outright argue as they picked themselves up off the pavement. Questioning the King of Hell wasn't a favored pastime for people that had the misfortune of coming under his attention, but their remarkable speed led Sam to believe that their only purpose this entire night had simply been to make a statement in bruising them up.
Dean didn't even watch them go. After tossing the man he held away from him with a grunt, he gripped the tire iron with both hands and poured all his frustration into it, bending it like taffy.
Sam stared at now horseshoe-shaped metal. Dean had always been stronger than a normal man, but he'd never been capable of anything like that before.
He rammed through half of what was left of the Roadhouse to get to me in the fire. Maybe a tire iron is a piece of cake for him now.
"Impressive," Crowley murmured, toeing it after Dean tossed it to his feet. A faint dash of blood orange surprise crossed his aura before quickly being buried by the flat sea of burgundy.
Cas, Sam noted, didn't look surprised at all by the brute display of excessive strength.
Sam immediately moved forward after making sure the others had fully retreated. Just because Dean was in the middle of losing his cool didn't mean that he should as well.
His steps forward weren't lost on Crowley, who watched him approach with a quirked mouth and a mild look of interest.
"Ah, Samuel Winchester. It's been so long since I've seen you face to face. You've fleshed out nicely, just as I predicted you would."
Standing by Dean's side was like standing in front of an open oven. His brother had tossed the code out the window and fought with reckless abandon to protect Cas, all for naught. Blood poured from his temple and a split lip, but the most concerning wound was a nasty slash someone had given him just above the hip hat darkened his shirt hem with a notable amount of blood.
This standoff can't last forever. He needs treatment.
"But I've been keeping tabs on you," Crowley continued, indifferent to the united front the brothers displayed, "Pictures don't do your height and build justice. You could make a lot of money in just one night at the Arena."
"Cut the fucking crap, Crowley," Dean said, voice low and guttural as his scraped hands clenched in fists. "What do you want?"
Crowley pretended to think hard about it for a few long seconds. Pretended being the key word. His burgundy aura didn't fluctuate in the slightest. Everything was an orchestrated act with him; every last detail planned to fit his desires.
"First, I'd like us to enter Gordon's room. You see, he became of great interest to me when I learned that he was hooked on demon blood. I'll use Mr. Novak here as incentive to keep you in line."
Sam's hand clamped down hard on Dean's shoulder to keep him from lunging and doing something incredibly stupid.
The King of Hell was infamous for his careful word games. There were ways that he could've known Cas' name; he was a nosy bastard that liked to be aware of every aspect of his fighter's lives, but in conjunction with everything else…
"You're the one that hired the Dead Eyes. They only care about the Enochian because of you," Sam said, tongue heavy in his sore mouth. He could feel blood trickling down by the side of his eye, right down the cheek that would be black and blue soon.
Crowley's smile flashed thin and sharp; the manifestation of satisfaction tainted by the bloody history Sam knew he was neck deep in.
"Correct. You're a credit to the local university. Mr. Novak is someone that initially caught my eye because of his…unique expertise, but I decided to let things play out when I realized that Dean was the one to save him from my first attempt at bringing him to a meeting."
"The Dead Eyes were mugging him!" Dean snapped, muscles corded like iron beneath Sam's hand. If he got anymore tense, his tendons would snap right off his bones.
"I can assure you that was not part of the plan. I'm afraid my contract with the Dead Eyes has only declined from that point," Crowley said, genuinely put out, "They've cost me wasted weeks and too much money. I'm extremely displeased with them."
Well, at least that's one group out of the count now, Sam thought blasely as a vein of muted indigo cut through Crowley's aura; a dark thread of anger unbound from an endless spool. The Dead Eyes didn't have a chance of survival now that they were in his bad books. They'd be nothing but a smudge in the history books by this time next year.
"You strike me as the kind of man that isn't pleased by much," Cas murmured, not out of bravery, but out of the sheer need to remark, never mind the fact that he still had the gun to his head.
Crap. Can we intercede before he shoots him?
Dean made a strangled noise of panic, aura flaring as Crowley turned with a flat face to Cas (this was it, Sam was going to witness the murder of a friend in a motel parking lot because they wanted to play with life and death matters). Any second now, he would-
Laugh.
Sam aborted the step forward he'd taken before Crowley, who chuckled dryly, could notice. Dean's aura jolted with shock as the King of Hell clapped a friendly hand on Cas' shoulder.
"You're funnier than the file I have on you suggested you'd be," he said, worsening the deer in the headlights look Cas was sporting, who must've sensed on some level he'd nearly messed up. "But enough of that out here. I suspect Gordon won't hold out on us for much longer."
"He's alive?" Dean blurted out as Crowley directed Cas to stand by the room's door.
Warning bells started ringing in Sam's head. Gordon was deader than a doornail behind that door; he knew he'd sensed the aura correctly, so why did Crowley want them all to go in?
"Oh no, he's very much dead. It's the state of his body that I'm more concerned about," Crowley clarified, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a key with a tag. A room key; one that he twirled around his finger before tossing towards them.
Either bought the night manager off or owns this whole property, Sam thought hysterically as Dean's hand snapped out to catch it with a growl. How far had Crowley's influence spread?
Sam stuck hot to his heels, reining in the shiver that wanted to run down his spine as he brushed up against Crowley's aura. The burgundy licked at him like the tongues of hellhounds, but lacking the hellfire heat it appeared it would possess. Sam already knew from the first time he'd met Crowley that his aura was uncannily room temperature, a bizarre, inexplicable feature that haunted him.
Dean hesitated to unlock the door, unwilling to tear his eyes away from Cas. His aura swirled indecisively, warring between the hated necessity to comply and the urge to tear him away from Crowley's nasty grip. Individual emotions were still hard to pick out, but the overall effect was more than enough to know how his brother felt about Cas.
It only took a gun in the hands of the King of Hell to pull his head out of his ass.
"Mr. Novak will be perfectly fine for as long as it takes you to unlock the door. Isn't that right, Mr. Novak? You don't mind if I call you Castiel, do you?"
Crowley nudged the gun, prompting Cas to speak.
"It's fine, Dean," he said, voice only hitching the slightest when Crowley made a humming sound of agreement. "Just do as he says."
"You heard Castiel. He's safe for tonight."
It took everything Dean had and then some to turn away after hearing Cas's first name coming from his boss' mouth, but he eventually obeyed with one last lingering look.
As soon as the door opened, the stench of death poured over them like a toxic wave. Dean groaned and covered his nose with his arm, the unfortunate first in the line of fire to be hit with the awful mix.
It was the typical scent of decomposition, but it didn't line up with the relatively recent time of death Sam had pegged earlier. There was a too sweet factor of rot to it, and something acrid and sharp, like chemicals.
Even worse, the remnants of Gordon's aura took it as a chance to escape, slithering over the asphalt in an attempt to latch onto them. They destroyed themselves in the process, as they were too feeble to get far from the room, but it unnerved Sam nonetheless to see them that active post-death.
Cas tried to step back, aura flaring with revulsion. A dead body, it seemed, was worse than a gun, but Sam couldn't really judge him for that. If Crowley had a file as extensive as he suspected on the Enochian expert, then he wasn't going to get shot tonight.
Crowley, however, was already prepared with a red handkerchief (always on brand) that surprisingly, wasn't for him, but Cas.
"Breath through your mouth, Mr. Novak. It'll make it a little easier," he suggested before making a shooing gesture at Dean. He didn't look perturbed in the least by the reek, which made sense considering the career he'd chosen to pursue. "Go on, before we waste any more of the night."
"Yeah, yeah," Dean grimaced; face screwed up as he opened the door wider. "Christ, why does he smell like he's been left to bake in the sun for a week?"
Crowley gestured for Sam to go in next, effectively nixing the plan he'd had to come in behind him so he could alleviate some of Dean's lingering worry. He didn't want to have Crowley behind his back either, but this was the King of Hell's show to run, and he was making his authority known.
Inside, every light the room had to offer lit up a garish scene. The mirrors in the room had either been taken down or covered up; Sam could catch a glimpse of the comforter taped to the mirror in the bathroom. Full take out containers littered the table, some not even opened, but all of them buzzing with eager flies. There were some cardboard boxes and personal items Gordon must've taken when he'd been evicted lying in a pile in the corner, abandoned in the wake of what looked like increasing paranoia and forgetfulness. The old box TV they'd heard earlier sat askew and played nothing but static.
Gordon rested against the headboard of a nearly stripped clean bed, slouched over and listing to the side with his left arm stretched before him. A cursory glance at the needles littering the nightstand revealed the cause of death: overdose.
Except nothing could ever be that simple. Gordon appeared emaciated, skin pulled tight over bones and clothes hanging off his frame. He'd been an average-sized man, a bit on the burly side, but the person lying in the bed couldn't have been more than 100 pounds soaking wet.
And then there were the words scrawled on the wall by the bed. Sam knew they told a story he didn't want to read in detail as soon as he saw the runes dancing across the faded wallpaper overtop torn out pictures and newspapers.
Enochian. But how could Gordon have known it?
"What the fuck? He's skeletal!" Dean exclaimed, aghast. There was no love lost between him and Gordon, but it was disturbing seeing someone you'd known resembling a dried-out husk.
"The drug ate him," Cas murmured from behind the handkerchief, eyes fixed on Gordon despite the horrified repulsion darting through his aura and his confused curiosity at the Enochian on the wall.
"An oversimplification, but yes, it appears demon blood eats at the user," Crowley said, distaste clear in his voice as he craned his neck to take in the scene without dropping the gun. "Sam, you've been on crime scenes. Dissect this one for us."
Sam looked away from the wall (it practically oozed the void-like aura), startled at being addressed.
"How do you-no, I don't even want to know," he muttered, shaking his head at the idea that Crowley had been tracking all their movements since the very beginning.
"I always know," Crowley said, delighted to play at omnipotence. "Now, tell me anything you can deduce, from the top."
Dean and Sam exchanged a look. Questioning why Crowley did something was useless, and downright folly when he had a gun.
"Fine," he replied shortly, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he wondered where the hell to start. Gordon's aura clung to every viable surface, dragging at their ankles and coalescing the longer they spent in the room. It sensed them and wanted to be closer to the living people.
Almost like the atmosphere at Cork's crime scene.
"Well, everything points to him losing his mental stability. He ordered food, then forgot to eat it, but probably thought he had eaten since he kept ordering it," Sam said, gesturing to the takeout with a grimace. "The mirrors and lights suggest he grew afraid of being watched. His physique could've been caused out of any number of reasons, but Cas is right; the drug ultimately ate him from the inside out. How warm is he?"
He asked Dean, who was standing the closest to Gordon. Dean gave him a betrayed look when he realized what Sam wanted of him.
"How warm is he-Sam, you want me to get close?"
"Put your hand above his torso, Dean," Crowley ordered, eyeing Sam with an intrigued expression.
Dean's jaw jumped with irritation, but he obeyed with a scowl that quickly morphed into a quizzical look.
"He's warm," he admitted grudgingly, lowering his hand until it was maybe two or three inches above Gordon's chest before snatching it away like he'd been bit. "Too warm for a dead guy. What gives?"
"His fever must've been astronomically high when he died," Sam mused, slipping into an analytical state. When faced with a mystery, it was hard not to get swept away. "No way he would've recovered from it though."
"Denatured proteins," Cas said, clarifying when Dean looked at his favorite academic with the question clear in his eyes. "Once you get-er-cooked at too high a temperature, the special bits that keep you going can't get uncooked."
"The drug must be potent if it reduced him to this in a matter of weeks," Sam added, eyes landing on the nightstand covered in used syringes. They were tipped with a dark liquid that looked like pure poison.
So that's why it's called demon blood.
"What about this…stuff?" Dean asked after darting a glance at his boss's dangerously neutral face.
Sam cringed as he gestured at the inky mess that stained Gordon's throat and seeped into the front of his crumpled shirt like a bad sweat stain. His bowed head was a mercy; Sam had a feeling the stuff leaked from every facial orifice he had to offer.
"That is more than nasty, and I have no clue," Sam said, deciding not to mention that it looked too much like the demon blood for comfort. "But I think that's what's adding to the smell."
"Intriguing conjecture. Perhaps you are better suited to a life outside the arena," Crowley said, abruptly kicking the door shut with his foot before slipping the gun into his suit jacket.
Nobody jumped at the apparent opportunity to escape. Crowley still had Dean in his contractual grips, and he'd made clear both Sam and Cas were on his radar. All the pleasantries and polite manhandling just covered up the power he held over them and much of Lawrence's crime world.
"Apologies for the gun, Castiel. I try to use it sparingly," he said, straightening his suit jacket as Dean swooped in to drag Cas away from the jaws of danger and towards the corner of the room furthest from Gordon.
"Now what?" Sam asked. He couldn't ascertain anything in Crowley's aura besides a thin sheen of thoughtfulness.
"I fill in some gaps of my choosing," he replied, flicking imaginary dust from his lapel. "But one final request for Sam. Tell me how Gordon came to end up here."
"There's been rumors you wanted to buy a supply of demon blood to give your fighters. You thought it was a super steroid," Sam started. "The Dead Eyes worked two-fold on this no doubt: get Cas and find out more about the drug, but instead, they harassed Cas and got hooked on the drug, cutting you out of the deal and the profit."
It was the only explanation Sam could come up with to encompass the conundrum of the Dead Eyes he'd encountered in the alley taking demon blood and Crowley somehow not having any of the drug in his hands.
"Low-level gangsters always think they're top dogs," Crowley sneered, "Another nail in the coffin in that useless contract I brokered with them, but in the end, I suppose my business dodged a bullet."
"Because demon blood isn't a steroid. It's nowhere close," Sam scoffed, flinging an arm out at Gordon. "You saw the signs in the Dead Eyes. It's highly addictive and destructive."
Crowley made a noncommittal sound, but his aura began to churn just the slightest, guided by the thread of indigo anger. Sam latched onto the subtle change, using it to help piece together what had only been indefinite conjectures and nagging hypotheses before tonight.
"You don't want it in Lawrence," Sam said slowly, only continuing when he saw he was right in Crowley's face. "At first, it was lost profit since you weren't the one in control of it, but now that you know it's useless to you, things are different. There's a new player with means trying to come into town, and they're encroaching on territory you manage."
"Drugs hold people's attention more than fights once they get hooked. It's bad for business," Crowley said lightly. Too lightly.
"You began looking for the source. The Dead Eyes must get it through a third party since you didn't go through them, so you looked for someone else; someone that got demon blood directly from the maker. Enter Gordon. Once you figured out he wasn't getting the drug from the Dead Eyes or anyone else, you swooped in."
"Hmm. It pays to have multiple properties with varying purposes," Crowley mused, casting a critical eye around the room. "I wanted to question Gordon about where he was getting his supply from, and to keep an eye on the side effects. I was receiving troubling reports about the addicts in the Dead Eyes ranks."
"Except Gordon provided neither," Sam surmised. "He was already out of his mind from the drug and in no position to answer questions. Weaning someone off of a drug like that requires actually having it to ration."
"So, you left him here," Dean interjected, realization dawning on him. "He had to make himself useful somehow. You wanted to track him when he went out and trace the dealer through him."
"Hole in one. A clever little plan that would've worked if the execution had gone better," Crowley sighed. "My incompetent employees lost track of him. I had orders to leave Gordon be and to report everything through our system first before anyone else got involved, so I was the first to know when the manager of this fine establishment suspected Gordon had ascended from this mortal coil."
"But why get us involved? Just to get to Cas?" Dean asked, astonished at the levels Crowley had gone to in arranging the whole night.
"For the most part. It seemed the most feasible way to get all three of you together without having to resort to kidnapping. I'd waste too many resources trying to kidnap a Winchester, and I dread to think of how much of Lawrence you'd burn down if I kidnapped Castiel," Crowley explained with a pointed look at the duo.
Cas blushed, shuffling away a bit from Dean, but the motion was rendered useless since Dean only tightened the arm he had looped around his shoulders. Reunited, their auras turned a strong teal in the middle that combated the dark veil over the room.
"I get wanting to talk to them, but why me?" Sam asked before Dean could truly register what Crowley was insinuating.
"Don't underestimate your importance, Sam," Crowley chided, "You've made connections I'm interested in, such as P.I Milton."
Sam tamped down the automatic reaction to shove his knife into Crowley's chest, or maybe his throat. Anywhere that would keep Gabe's name out of his mouth.
"What about him?" he asked, scowl darker than the shadows that persisted in the room.
"He's good at what he does, for a P.I. It's a shame he can't be bought like some of the LPD," Crowley replied nonchalantly, unaffected by Sam's frigidness. "You two make a fantastic duo. The tragic pasts you both have are downright Shakespearian. But enough of him. You see, it's all about the Enochian."
"Do you…know it?" Cas asked slowly, trepidation increasing when Crowley turned to face him.
"I don't, but I know of its history; all the legend and lore surrounding it," he said, gaze shifting to the wall. There, his eyes filled with a low burning fire.
"The language of the angels. Enochian is a language of power, but only available to those supposedly descended from divinity. It can be learned by anyone with some study, but an origin story has it that those descendants have the innate skill to truly harness the language. All the rituals and commands, in theory, can work, as long as the right person speaks it to life."
An innate skill to harness the language.
Sam stared at Crowley. He had to admit, this was a conversation twist he hadn't expected to hear coming from the King of Hell.
"It sounds like a load of crock, doesn't it?" Crowley asked wryly. "But Castiel can confirm that, at the very least, Enochian has a fascinating history and no solid origin."
They turned to look as Cas, who had a peculiar expression in his face and an aura wound up tighter than a screw. Dean's blank face only fed the suspicion building in Sam that there was something they knew that he didn't; something about Enochian.
Had Crowley hit the nail on the head? Was there merit to the stories of Enochian having a supernatural aspect? It sounded farfetched, but Sam was the last person to dismiss such things when he could see colors around people and had prophetic dreams. There was more to Enochian than met the eye for sure, but how far did that slope go?
And does it have anything to do with why Gabe lies about knowing Enochian?
It served him right that just as he'd untangled a piece of the puzzle that had involved Crowley the whole time, Sam was served up a new conundrum to figure out.
"Enochian does indeed have a speculative history. But the stories are just that: stories."
Sam watched as a bolt of gray cut across his aura, sharp and clear.
A lie.
He didn't call Cas out on it, just like he hadn't questioned Gabe about Enochian. Dean was growing antsy now; nervous enough that Sam knew he was in on whatever secrets Cas harbored about the language. That would have to be good enough for the time being.
"Of course. But how did Gordon, a man who had no interest or necessity for higher academia, come to know Enochian?" Crowley asked, gesturing at the defaced wall.
They all turned to look at it. Cas' jaw worked anxiously, and Dean looked pointedly away after a few seconds. Sam watched them both, then glanced at Crowley, who not only seemed aware of the tension he was creating but reveled in it.
"Well, that's all I needed you gentlemen for tonight!" he said suddenly, clearing the air with a brisk clap of his hands.
"Are you serious?" Dean asked, half-irritated and half-disbelieving.
"Deadly," Crowley replied with a thin smile. "Just like those wounds of yours might become. I told them not to stab you too much, but I suppose the temptation was too much for the boys to resist."
Sam jolted at the sight of the growing bloodstain on Dean's shirt. Crowley was right; that wound would've benched an average person as soon as the wound had been received.
"A drive to the Arena can fix that," Crowley mused as Cas began to fuss at the wound, "We'll take my car."
Dean looked up from his shirt with a quizzical expression, fingers pinching the soaked material with a faint air of disgust at the ruined fabric.
"I guess," he said hesitantly, only agreeing because he'd been patched up on Crowley's dime numerous times, before turning to Sam.
"Sammy, can you…?"
"Yeah," Sam replied as Dean pressed the keys into his hand. Driving the Impala was a privilege; one Sam hadn't been privy to since the blow-up argument with John, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
"I'll go with him," Cas said, leaving no room for argument as he hustled Dean out the door, "Be careful."
"When am I not?"
Cas shot him a doubtful look before hurrying to offer Dean support that he was already valiantly trying to shrug off.
That left him with Crowley in a room with a dead man. Not the most ideal situation, but Sam had been in worse places.
"Gordon didn't know Enochian," Crowley said after a beat of silence. His words carried a weight to them that insisted on being heard and remembered outside of the room. "He didn't learn it from anyone either."
"What are you suggesting then? He picked it up through osmosis?" Sam asked sarcastically, unable to keep his tongue in check. Tiredness was creeping up on him, foretelling a long drive that he'd spend blasting music to keep himself awake.
"I think the person who's making demon blood knows Enochian and somehow exposed Gordon to it. Maybe the drug temporarily unlocked understanding of the language, or maybe he simply went insane and we're looking at nonsense he extrapolated from the graffiti. But I don't think we're looking at gibberish here."
"You know that sounds pretty out there, right?" Sam asked slowly.
"I'm well aware, but the body count is rising," Crowley said ominously. "The Dead Eyes are, and I cringe as I say this, dropping dead like flies. Some are going faster than others, and the ones that died the fastest are the same ones that spent time around the Enochian graffiti the killer left. They're the ones I'm most concerned about."
Crowley strode forward, plucking another red handkerchief with the ease of a magician and wrapping it in his hand before tilting Gordon's bowed head upward.
Where his eyes should've been were nothing but sunken in sockets, paper-thin around the darkened edges as if they'd been burned out. The inky liquid that stained his shirt poured from his eyes, nose, and gaping mouth, highlighting the rictus of terror he'd died wearing.
"What the hell?"
"Indeed," Crowley said dryly, letting Gordon's head fall back down to hide the nightmare his face had become. "Neither Dean nor his new beau noticed as they were too distracted by each other, but there's a reason why I wanted you here tonight. The LPD is going to start discovering bodies like this despite my very best efforts to keep this in house."
Sam could already see the headlines splashed on every news outlet imaginable. Lawrence was already a body away from boiling over in terror, and the FBI was setting up shop in town. If bodies with mysteriously missing eyes started appearing…
It didn't matter if a drug was doing this. It would only take a mere mention of the term serial killer and Lawrence would be plunged into madness worse than the original Yellow Eyes craze.
"You want me to tell Gabriel," Sam deduced, forcing himself to use his full first name. He had no clue how much Crowley knew, but if he was as thorough as he was with his fighters, it'd be useless to feign a purely professional relationship with Gabe.
"He's the man for the job. A monetary sum can be arranged for your combined efforts."
"There's no way he'd sign a contract with you," Sam countered, "And neither will I."
Crowley shrugged off the denial. "Perhaps, but that remains to be seen. You'll hear from me in the future."
"Right. I'm going to go now," Sam said tiredly, unable to summon up the energy to express his discontentment at having to interact with Crowley on anything more than a blue moon basis.
"Have a pleasant trip, Sam."
The last of Gordon's aura hounded him on the way out, stubbornly clinging to his shoes with a resilience that should've been impossible. After checking in with Dean who wanted to see that he was in one piece after being left alone with Crowley and futilely trying to convince Cas to come with him instead of risking his neck at Mayhem Arena (his loyalty was endearing, but hard to argue with), Sam said his goodbyes and left with only one place in mind.
It took pulling onto the highway, rolling down the windows, and turning up the music as high as it could go for the void aura to dissipate completely. Sam's skin crawled with the ghost imprint of it, but at least it was gone from his sight.
If only the rest of the night could be left behind as easily.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
So I spent forever editing this cause it's a little behemoth of a chapter but behold! Destiel got a kick in the ass and Crowley is officially in the plot. I've only been waiting the whole story to write him into it. I wanted to get this up earlier in the week, but life gets in the way sometimes.