This time when Sam and Dean entered the Pleasuredome, they strode in confidently. And bloody. It didn't go unnoticed by Bill and Gavin.
"You finally seen sense?" His voice was higher pitched than usual. "Come to apologise and then fuck the fuck off?" Sam had to admire his balls. Kind of.
"Yeah, not so much." Dean reached up and undid Bill's cuffs. "Your turn to come and play."
Bill's already bloodied and bruised face went a very unattractive shade of purple but he still tried to play it cool. He casually rubbed life back into his arms. "Got nothing out of my crew did ya? See, I don't hire pussies. They'll never talk."
"Well you're right there Bill - bit hard to talk when you're dead..." Dean left that one hanging in the air. In a microsecond, Bill lost his composure and suddenly began to wildly kick and punch. Gav joined the circus by futilely screaming blue murder. Sam helped Dean drag the whirling, punching Bill out of the room and forced him along the corridor. They let go of him as soon as he reached the living room.
Bill stood statue still, shocked, taking it all in. He stared hard at Archie's body. Dean came up behind him and kicked the back of one of Bill's knees, forcing him to stumble down onto the still warm corpse of his friend. As he fell he put one hand out to steady himself and it ended up almost wrist deep inside Archie's intestines. He yanked his hand out of the wound, small whining noises coming from his throat.
Sam crouched down next to him. Got himself comfortable. "How has it come to this, eh Bill?" He spoke softly. "I don't suppose either of us imagined when we got up this morning that the day would end like this huh?"
Bill didn't say anything, just looked at Sam bewildered.
"There's so much you don't understand that's going on here. And I've changed my mind, I will explain it to you. All of it. But first I need to know the time and location for tomorrow. One simple sentence from you is all I need before I tell you everything. Then you and your still-breathing brother can go bury your dead. And begin plotting whatever revenge it is you want against me. But in order to do that you need to be alive..." Sam emphasised the point by gently waggling the knife in his hand.
"What..." Bill's voice cracked and he had to start again. "What the fuck did you do to him?"
"I think that's pretty fucking obvious, don't you?" Dean snarled. "He told us some. Not all of it, but he bled out before he could spill his guts. Um, no actually he did spill his guts. They're all over your filthy carpet."
"...And...Alfie?" That was just a whisper.
"Oh man. Lets just say that the other room is gonna need an industrial hose-down to get it clean. Cleaner. Who am I kidding, it'll never be clean." Dean smiled a smile that no normal person could call a smile. It even made Sam's insides go cold for a moment.
Sam expected Bill to start with the raging again. Instead the London gangster totally surprised him by crumbling like a sat-on potato chip. He made a stuttering wheezy noise and then his whole body seemed to fold in on itself.
"3pm tomorrow. Romford. Chinese noodle place near Boots the chemist. I'm to drop the necklace off with a lad named Neil. He'll give me a wad of cash. That's it."
Sam was stunned at how quickly Bill had broken. Dean had exactly called it right.
"That's it?" Dean wasn't happy though. He started shouting at Bill's monotone response. "How the fuck does that help us? Its Sir-fucking-Asshole we want, not your damn ransom money!"
Bill shrugged and looked up at Sam. "I never heard of this MOD bloke until you said his name. Like you said before, we didn't dig deep enough to find out who our employer was. We bollocked that right up. End of the day, all we were ever in this for was the money."
"How much?" Sam asked. "How much were mine and Lara's lives worth?"
"She weren't worth anything. No cash for her. You, however was twenty grand. Don't know what that is in dollars."
"Thats all?" Dean was dumbstruck.
"At the time it seemed a fair bit of cash for a piss-easy job."
"How'd that work out for you?" Dean was disgusted "Cheap as well as stupid" he muttered.
Sam pushed for more info whilst the going was good. "How did you communicate with this 'employer'? How did you find out about the job?"
"Someone I did a bit of business with a while back said he'd heard of something that was our specialty. Gave me an email address to use if I was interested in taking the job. Usual stuff. Not rocket science. Me and Alfie went to the internet cafe down the road. Sent an email. Got one back with your name and details on it and that was that."
"When was this?"
"Two weeks ago give or take."
Sam frowned heavily. Two weeks this asshole had been plotting. Sam had maybe only known Lara a day at that point but that was all it took for her to get drawn into Bill's and the British Men of Letters web.
"We checked you out..." Dean snorted at that, but Bill carried on. "We got the gist of you normal routine and used our usual MO to grab hold of you. Easy."
"Easy." Sam repeated back to him. "Easy." What a fucking joke. "What were you planning on doing with us once Dean had handed over the necklace tomorrow? You were totally gonna come back here and let us go, right?" Sam's mouth twisted with sarcasm.
"Maybe. Depends on what my employer wanted." Seemed he couldn't stop with telling the truth now.
"I would bet all the money I own, and then some, that your employer would have wanted me murdered."
"If that's what he wanted then that would have been tomorrow's problem. The kid..." He swallowed. "Alfie was supposed to check the email once the drop off was done. He..." Bill squinted, shook his head. Took a long hard look at Castiel who was almost invisible as he stood in the shadows of a corner of the room. He clutched hold of Sam's already stained collar, bloodying it up some more. His flat, bloodshot eyes suddenly shone fever-like. "Listen to me. Listen! You promised to tell me what's going on. Tell me! I've fell in through Alice's looking glass this morning and I don't know how to get out. Tell me how to get out!" The weird wobbling tone was unlike any Sam had heard him use before.
It would have been so easy to deny him. Make the man who was due to have murdered him tomorrow him beg and plead. But Sam knew that the truth, when Bill found it out, would blow his mind more. And Bill was a million miles from ever being forgiven. So Sam knocked the man's hand off his collar and began to talk. Coldly. Low and slow.
"Me and my brothers are hunters. We track down and kill monsters. Demons. Ghosts. Any - and every - evil thing there is. And I don't mean nasty little fuckers like you. I mean real ones. Ones that would take one look at you and then literally eat you alive."
The words should have sounded ridiculous but everything about his tone, his expression, showed Bill that Sam was deadly serious. And not about to stop there either. "You've heard of Hell right? Course you have. Well, Hell is real. That's where you're ending up by the way - its the only place kidnappers, psychos and murderers like you go. Me and Dean have been dragged down there a few times but the place never stuck with us. Lucifer is real - and let me tell you - he would laugh his ass off at your attempt at torture. And I should know, having first-hand personal experience. Yeah, you thought your pathetic efforts would break me? Dude, this isn't even the worst I've been tortured this year!" Sam was on a roll now, a large part of him delighting at Bills horrified expression. He wanted to turn the knife further, unwilling to stop there. "Shapeshifters and ghouls are real. Vampires. Werewolves. Things that would drink your blood, eat your heart then go to town on your soul." Sam laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. It was rough and raw and totally without humor. "And you want to know the worst bit, you stupid dick? When you kidnapped me, you made enemies of Sam and Dean Winchester. Two brothers that even the monsters are scared of. Plus our friend over there? Castiel? He's an angel. But don't let that word fool you, he's the most badass man I've ever met. Between us we've killed more demons, vamps and soul-sucking creatures than you're capable of even counting." He patted Bill's cheek, making him flinch, and stood up, knees creaking. "Just a little something to bear in mind whilst you plot your petty revenge against us."
Sam turned away, done with the husk of a man in front of him. Turned and saw Lara with a hand to her mouth. Tears in her eyes. Horror in her eyes. If she'd even heard only half of what he'd just said he knew they were done. Still hyped up on repressed anger and cold fury he barely even cared. Welcome to the life and times of Sam Winchester; nothing but a monologue of death and nightmares.
Time seemed to slow as he took in the moment. She was appalled by him. By his life, by his words. And by the ruthless man he was quite obviously capable of being. The look in her eyes was so different to that of Dean's. Or Castiel's. They looked at him proudly. Satisfied. It equal measures sickened him, and made him feel like he'd come home. And he had, in a way. He knew who he was. Had it reaffirmed.
He tore his eyes away from hers and turned to Dean. Always the first person he turned to. "Do you have the necklace?"
"No - its back at the bunker. But I picked up something similar from a pawn shop near where we're staying. Its actually nicer than Tishes'.
"Good. Ok." He was all business now. "We need to get a tracking device attached to it. Then follow it back to Haversham. If he's not going to be at the meet up then we go wherever he is." Then the British Men of Letters are done for good.
"Whatever you say bro." Dean said, happily. "Can't wait to get the hell out of this dive. Just two questions. Where do we find a tracker? And what do we do with these guys?"
