Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 26: Just Deserts
"Seriously?" Sam asked, pulling a face, "Crowley was negotiating with Hitler and the Thule during World War II to get rid of the Gremlins messing with his war machines, but some fairy Queen, what? Out bid him and Lilith?"
Dean didn't take his eyes off the road as he piloted the impala around a sharp curve. "Pretty much."
"I mean, I know some practitioners deal with the fae to gain magic. But it's pretty rare. According to the lore, the fae often weasel out of their deals, things end bad a fair percentage of the time."
"Crowley reckons that's what happened with Hitler. Wasn't syphilis, or some shit.
He reckons the Fairy Queen banished the Gremlins, 'cept Spike, who musta been in the Bunker. An' then she cursed him for his trouble." Dean fished in the almost empty bag between his knees, and tossed some M&M's in his mouth with a grunt. "Far as I'm concerned, couldn't have happened to a better genocidal asshole.
Lilith was all kinds of pissed about the whole thing, apparently. Nazi death camps were like a demonic version of the Bahamas, to hear Crowley talk." Dean shuddered and looked intently at the road, his lips thin.
"And Crowley just told you all this?"
"Nah, he wanted to know about Abbadon."
"And you told him!?"
"Well, not all of it, obviously." Dean tossed more M&M's in his mouth, chewing the candy as he talked. "Just the bit about her chasing Henry through the closet, and how she wanted to destroy everything to do with the demon cure. I mean, it's not like the cure is some big secret to the dude.
You want some?" Dean rattled the bag of M&M's under his nose.
Sam shook his head, waving it off. The cloying scent of chocolate and sugar made his stomach feel tight and acidic. Things still weren't right after the trials.
"Turns out Abbadon and Crowley aren't exactly best buds." Dean continued after tossing more rainbow candy into his mouth. "You said, she laid into him pretty good at the church, right? And remember how pissed she was to hear he was King of Hell. Called him a salesman. Just figured, if telling him about her got him talking, it was a win."
"But he didn't actually tell you anything. Just a bunch of unconfirmed history. He doesn't know how to get rid of a gremlin, does he Dean?"
"Yeah, that's a no.
But he told me somethin' else. Ever wonder how Cas got your souless ass outta the cage?"
Sam grimaced. "Yeah, I do." Cas hadn't exactly been forthcoming with an explanation for that.
"Well, remember what Wayne the leprechaun said to you in Elswood? 'bout how his magic was different, an' he had a way of getting in back doors, included the cage."
"Not so much, but yeah."
"That's how Cas did it.
Crowley sent him to a fairy, and Cas made some kinda deal to get you out. Apparently, Lucifer and the Queen of the," Dean waved a hand airily, "whatever they call evil-ass fairies. She's got some kind of backstage pass to the cage, pays a tithe of souls to Lucifer direct, outta the smucks they take.
'Course the fairy yanked you outta the cage without a soul. Either 'cause it couldn't, or that's just what they do for kicks, misinterpret shit an' screw people over.
'ccording to King of the Douche bags, one of the first things Cas did after he went all Godstiel, was obliterate the fairy that screwed him over."
Sam shook his head, wincing internally at the reminder of Cas's stint as a self proclaimed god. "He wasn't exactly… forgiving, when he was hopped up on purgatory souls and Leviathan."
Dean grunted. "Yeah well. Hope he gets a chance to gank that sonofabitch, Metatron too."
"Mmm, except we might need Metatron alive to fix things..." He peered pensively out of the windshield.
"Hey, if Cas really is human now … You think we ought to be more worried for him. Go out searching, instead of waiting for him to just, turn up?"
"Nah. Dudes older than dirt, he can handle one cross country road trip. You managed when you bailed for Stanford, didn't you, an' you were just a nerdy bitch-boy." Dean glanced at him and grinned smugly. "Still are."
Dean was such an ass. "Jerk." Sam shoved his brother's shoulder roughly, making the bag of M&M's in his hand shake, and scatter it's contents into the footwell.
"Hey! I was gonna eat those."
"Just looking out for you, Dean. Now you're 30, your metabolism's going to slow down, increasing your chances of things like diabetes and heart disease."
"What ever, I've got the metabolism of a 20 year old." Dean scoffed.
Sam rolled his eyes. "A 20 year old Labrador retriever, maybe."
His dig flew straight over Dean's head. "If I faint from lack of sustainance an' we crash, you'll be laughin' outta the other side of your face." He groused kicking the candy out from under his feet and over onto Sam's side.
Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's overblown hyperbole.
"I'll take my chances." He muttered, bending over to pick up the treats off the floor. Next time Dean wasn't looking he'd dump them back in the bag, then he could sit back and enjoy watching his brother eat floor food.
…ooo0ooo…
Kevin was sitting in the library trying to focus on translating the Angel tablet when his phone rang.
"Hey?" He answered it easily, surprised the Winchesters were checking in again so soon. He'd heard from them only that morning. Mostly he suspected, so Dean could vent about how bad mutilated cattle smelled.
"Hey, boss, uh... we got a little problem here." Dean started.
"Boss?" He asked confused by Dean's tone and words.
"Yeah, just a local badge needs confirmation we're supposed to be here. How the word came down from FBI headquarters in DC…"
"Wait, w-what?"
"Yeah." Dean answered woodenly.
Before he could prepare himself, or even catch up, another voice filled his ear. "This is Sargent Miranda Bates, who am I talking to?" A woman demanded briskly.
"Uh..." he floundered. "Kevin." He had just enough sense not to give his real last name. "Solo." He added, the first name to come to mind.
"How old are you?" The woman demanded, sounding pissed.
He wasn't good with angry women. His mother had conditioned him to fear and respect that particular tone of feminine ire.
"Old enough." He answered tightly, bristling silently at the way people always thought that if you were young, you were also an idiot. "And I'm with the FBI, so you have to do what I say, or..." his mouth added idiotically.
Oh heck no! Kevin's brain caught up with a jolt.
Damn! That made him sound like a grade schooler
"Listen, kid, I don't have to do anything. And I don't take orders from the Feebs."
Shit, shit, shit! Sam and Dean were going to be livid. He had to fix this!
Well, if this Sargent Miranda Bates woman wasn't going to play nice, neither was he. Everyone had secrets, stuff they were ashamed of and didn't want spilled.
He pulled the laptop towards him and started typing frantically as the woman kept haranguing him.
"…So unless you can give me one good reason you got a couple of pretty-boy agents poking around my crime scene. I'm gonna put them in cuffs, and spank your ass raw, understand?"
Ah, score! Paydirt. Thank god!
"Cabo, last June." He answered, trying to keep the glee out of his voice.
It helped to see what she looked like. To see photos of her acting like some college frat girl in a bad porno.
Naughty, naughty, Mz. Bates.
"What?" Sargent Miranda Bates sounded suddenly on guard now.
"That's my reason." He said, feeling smug.
"My favorite is you in a sombrero, doing a body shot off some naked guy in a Luchador mask.
Super classy." He added, to twist the knife.
Why were people such idiots, didn't they realise how easy it was for a decent hacker to get into their 'private' files.
"How did you find that?" Was there a squeak in her voice now?
It felt great, hearing that edge of fear wash away all her previous contempt. Finally some respect, getting treated as a threat, instead of a forever, helpless victim.
"'Cause I'm Kevin freaking Solo. So, unless you want this forwarded to your commanding officer, Major Velasquez… I suggest you give my guys anything they want. Understand?"
"Yes." The woman agreed.
But he wasn't satisfied with agreement now, he wanted to make her sweat. If he was a real FBI agent, he'd show her who was boss, he justified.
"Yes… sir!" He prompted.
"Yes, sir." She said like she was standing at attention and in pain, her voice suitably cowed.
The was a silence, then Dean's voice in his ear.
"Kevin? What the hell did you just do?"
Kevin found himself grinning at the amazement in the hunter's voice.
"All military computers are linked to the same network." He explained.
"And?" Dean sounded confused.
"I hacked it."
Dean let out a small breath that could have been a chuckle.
"Hey, Kevin? Good job, buddy."
Despite himself Kevin felt a warm well of pride at the praise.
Dean wasn't exactly the most verbose of people, but somehow he always made you feel … seen.
Dean had just hung up when there came a slow clapping sound from somewhere on the other side of the room.
Kevin lept to his feet in shock, heart hammering in terror, expecting Crowley to have escaped and be standing there smiling at him in contempt filled amusement.
'Ahhh Kev, Kev, Kev. Thought I was locked up tight down there, did you?'
But the room appeared empty.
"I'm impressed, boy. Couldn't have done it better myself." A voice, that wasn't Crowley's, complemented him dryly out of nowhere.
Suddenly, Kevin realised what this was, and that he'd heard that voice before, after a nightmare.
The gremlin!?
Fumbling with numb fingers, heart hammering with adrenalin and nerves. Kevin fished the Hag stone out of the front of his shirt and raised it to his eye. Scanned the place the voice seemed to have come from.
And there it was, seated on the far wooden library table, next to the other antique lamp.