Chapter 14
Cascadia, Oregon
Ellie and Frank looked at each other, lowering their guns and letting out their breath together.
Adam looked at the guns, brows raised. "Did something happen?"
Ellie flicked the safety back on and set her SIG on the table. Frank reholstered his automatic in his shoulder holster. Cassie and Talya rose from their crouched positions behind Frank.
"Ellie found the ritual last night." Frank said. "We're a bit more paranoid than usual."
"Did she?" Adam turned his head to look at her, taking a stride to the table at the same time.
In the heartbeat that followed Ellie registered the indifference in his eyes with a sudden terrifying certainty. Moving sideways, her hand outstretched for the gun on the table, she knew she was too late, her warning rising in her throat even as Adam's arm lifted and the .38 revolver in his hand fired, his other hand flipping the table and sending her gun sliding across the floor.
Frank staggered back against the wall, the bullet punching into the side of his chest, his head dropping to look at the red stain flowering against his shirt in disbelief. Adam swung around, the round black hole of the gun's barrel foreshortened in her view as it pointed straight at her. She stopped moving, keeping both hands visible. He was aiming for her abdomen.
"I guess I don't need to explain what I'm doing then, do I?" His face was expressionless. "Don't even think about moving or trying to get that gun, because we both know I can't miss at this distance."
He walked around the table, the gun remaining on her, and crouched to retrieve the SIG from the floor. He put it into his pocket, then gestured to the shelf beside the door. "Get me that wire."
Dean had left a few coils of wire there after he'd laid out the mines. Ellie thought of the detonators, sitting on the hall table, holding her anger down. They'd tried to think of everything.
Cassie and Talya remained motionless, both staring at Ellie, and Adam's voice rose sharply. "Get me the fucking wire!"
Cassie jumped and looked around, seeing the coils behind her. She looked at Talya. The nephilim's eyes were wide, her mouth tight. Cassie reached out for the coil.
"Don't even think of fucking with me, I'm a dead man, I have absolutely nothing left to lose."
He turned the gun on Talya, and fired, the bullet hitting the nephilim high under the shoulder. She spun around and hit the shelves behind her, her face twisted with pain and fear.
To Cassie, he said, "Tie her wrists together. Tightly."
Cassie walked behind Ellie and bound her wrists, leaving as much slack as she could in the loops of plastic-coated wire. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"And ankles. Hobbles, do you understand? Leave about six inches slack between them."
Cassie bent and made the loops around each ankle, leaving a length of wire between them.
Adam looked from Ellie to Cassie and shook his head. "You really are too trusting."
The revolver's barrel swung slowly around until it was pointed at Cassie.
Ellie tensed herself to move to draw his fire. The table wouldn't do much to stop a round from the 9mm but if she could make the door…the thought vanished as her attention focused on Adam. He stood unmoving, his eyes flaring with red fire, his mouth hanging open. He looked like a puppet, she thought.
Without warning, he stepped forward, reversing his grip on the gun and striking Cassie hard on the side of the head. He turned away as she fell to the floor and the barrel was once again pointed at Ellie. A stride closed the distance between them and the gun pushed against her side. She stepped through the doorway awkwardly, the wire limiting her movement. Behind her was the click of the lock as Adam closed the door.
Cassie was out but otherwise uninjured. Frank needed an ambulance and so did Talya. There was a possibility no one would be able to get hold of help for some time.
"Move it." Adam jammed the barrel harder into her side. She stumbled against the pull of the wire with the longer stride, her breath caught in her throat at the thought of a fall.
"What happened, Adam?"
"Shut up." He pushed her harder this time and she tripped against the wire, twisting fast to land on her shoulder and back, her breath hissing out as her arm took the brunt of the impact.
"Get UP!" Leaning over her, he took a handful of her jacket and shirt, hauling her to her feet, turning to look at her. "Don't talk. Don't do anything but what you're told."
Red flickered against the pale blue irises, his pupils pinpoints and unfocused. Ellie got her balance and shuffled forward again. He wasn't possessed precisely. She took a deep breath, controlling and restraining the fear that had risen at the sight of his eyes, forcing herself to think. Something was controlling him, but more as if it were remote, complete with a delay in the ability to act. She wasn't sure it would give enough of an advantage. She wasn't in shape to fight.
The Cutlass was parked outside, at the bottom of the porch steps. Pushing her to the trunk, Adam kept the gun against her as he opened it. He forced her back against the rim, then ducked to sweep her legs from the ground. She fell inside and the lid slammed down. Wriggling until she lay half on her side, half on her back, Ellie focused on her body, curling up in an attempt to ensure her abdomen was protected. Around her wrists, the wire loops had some slack. She slowed her breathing, taking longer, deeper breaths to redirect the pain in her arms, lock down the fear that fluttered along her nerves, and focus on working the loops and the give in the wire.
The engine started and the car moved forward, bouncing over the ruts and holes along the road.
I-70, Kansas
Dean watched the speedometer as he manoeuvred the Impala around the obstacles that cluttered the road. He'd be past the last town in half an hour and he could take it up then, nothing on the road until he reached the border. He was making an effort to keep his hands light on the wheel, his attention tightly on the driving, on the car, on getting out of Kansas in one piece.
Behind the strained wall in his mind, fear was hammering to get out.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he turned onto the 70 and his foot down hard. He'd have to get off the interstate at Colby, the attempts by the military to come in from Colorado that way had created a massive obstruction across it. He'd go north, cross the border at Sanborn, then pick up the 80. He wondered humorlessly if the demon and angel proofing on the car would hide him from the Highway Patrol as well. It didn't matter; he wasn't slowing down for anyone.
Music flooded out of the speakers at full volume, the steady beat and constant distraction necessary. He needed to keep his concentration on what he was doing. He had to keep the thoughts of what might be happening in Oregon at a distance. He had to ignore the growing certainty in his gut that he was too late; that once again, he was going to be too late.
He turned north and then west again onto SR 34, barely seeing the black and grey landscape now, the thick smoke that swirled and twisted away from the car as they raced through it, the broken buildings and contorted wrecks, charred bones protruding.
Ahead, the smoke and ash and fog formed a solid wall across the road as he passed through the tiny town of Sanborn. He eased back, letting the speed drop, knowing that on the other side, the normal side, the road could be blocked, either by the military or the media or by both. The Impala swept through the wall, headlights blazing, and he came out the other side into bright sunshine, blazing in a cloudless blue sky.
Despite the fact that he knew it would be different, it was still a shock. From a world of black and grey, of ash and death and desolation, the front of the car came into a world of colour. He blinked as the depth and variety of colour assaulted his eyes, veering past a news van that had parked itself across the middle of the road, its roof-mounted camera now tracking his progress down the street.
There were only a few representatives of the press here, by far the greater concentrations were on the interstates leading into Kansas, but there were enough to make his progress difficult. He touched the accelerator as he saw them closing in on the car, the heel of his hand hitting the horn as it seemed some might actually cross in front of him. Then he was through and speeding up as he found the road out, SR 385 due north. He caught a glimpse of the Thanks for visiting Wray! sign as he sped away.
His phone was beeping insistently and he pulled it out of his pocket, holding it against the wheel as he looked at the new message notification. He pushed the button and held the phone against his ear.
"Dean, it's Ellie … I found the ritual, listen I think Cas is in danger. I think he's been taken by the Princes for the ritual. Please, call me as soon as you get this."
Fuck.
He dialled the house in Cascadia. There was nothing, not a ring, not even a message from the phone company stating that there was something wrong with the line. He looked down at the phone and dialled Ellie's cell number. The phone was off, going straight to voicemail. He dialled Frank's cell. Off as well.
And Twist's.
And Adam's.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He threw the phone onto the seat beside him. The noise of the tyres as they crossed the seams in the concrete was rhythmic, and it matched the beat of his thoughts. Too late. Too late. Too late. He pushed in another tape and turned up the volume. There was nothing else he could do but keep going.
Hutchinson, Kansas
Sam walked into the small tent, ducking his head as he came through the loose opening.
Tricia was sitting on the edge of the military cot and she looked around at him. "Is Dean staying?"
He shook his head, wondering how everything could have turned to shit in such a short length of time. "Ellie…their baby is the soul the archdemons are looking for. He went back to Oregon."
She got to her feet as he walked toward her, her face whitening. "The baby? But how?"
"I don't know exactly. It was the angel lines, Dean said. He and I—we're descended from two of the Watcher lines—"
"I know," Tricia said. "Ellie told me."
"Apparently, she's descended from a third Watcher, a fallen called Amaros, and somehow, the three are the only ones who are compatible enough with Lucifer to allow this to happen."
"What?" Tricia's face spasmed. "That isn't a coincidence, or a mistake—that's—"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. Dean knows it too."
"But why? Why!?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. They're angels. They don't seem to come equipped with explanations."
It wasn't the only thing lacking in a coherent explanation, he knew. He stopped in front of Tricia and put his hands to her shoulders, aware that no much how much he apologised, he probably wouldn't ever make it right. "I'm sorry, Trish."
To his surprise, she looked away, shaking her head. "What happened, Sam?"
"I'm not sure." He turned away, dropping onto the long, narrow cot. "I can't remember the details—not without feeling as if my head is going to explode. I think—it seems like it was Adam, in some way, but I don't know how he did it. Or even if it was him, really."
Tricia's head snapped around. "Adam? But Adam's supposed to be helping—"
"—yeah." He ran his hand through his hair. "I remember going into the back room to clean the guns. That's it. I don't remember what he said or if he did—anything. Something was…I don't know?…Planted in me? Awoken in me? I can't leave here. If I try to go beyond the angel lines, my head—"
She frowned as she knelt in front of him, looking up into his face. "You mean, like a…compulsion?"
"I guess so." His forehead creased as he tried to describe it. "As long as I'm here, I feel mostly normal. More angry, but at least like myself." His gaze shifted to the doorway. "If I try and leave, even walking out, the anger gets stronger and stronger and I can't think of anything else, just killing Lucifer, destroying Hell."
He shook his head slightly. "So I'm stuck here. But you don't have to be."
"I can't leave either. I tried." She gave him a lop-sided smile. "The demons are watching the edges of the field."
Sam flinched. Tricia leaned forward, touching his hand lightly. "It's okay."
"No. It's not. It's a long goddamned way from okay, Trish."
She stretched, gesturing vaguely toward the door. "Why would you and Dean be trapped like this?"
"I don't know. Not really. Maybe because of what we did last time," he said. He hadn't thought on it much, he realised. Neither he or Dean had really gone through the ramifications of Ellie's theories. There'd been too many other things to worry about.
"Ellie told Dean that destiny hasn't been broken; it's just switched tracks. She thinks Lucifer still has to die—but she doesn't know how that kind of edict gets passed down—and…well, maybe, because we were involved the last time, we have to be again." The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed to be. He shrugged. "I don't know."
"Can you kill him?"
"We got some help with that." He lifted the spear onto his knees, unwrapping the cloths from the iron and wooden shafts. "This is the Spear of Destiny…and it can kill Lucifer."
He watched her as she looked down at the dull black metal, the small triangular head, with its broken tip, then back up at him. Her doubts were clear in her face and he didn't blame her. To kill the devil…a fallen angel…one of the sons of God…
"This?"
"That's more or less what I said too," he said, smiling. "Michael confirmed that it is the Spear. Dean said that it has the blood of God—more specifically, the blood of Christ—on it, and it'll kill the archangel if I can get it into his heart." Ducking his head as he wrapped the head and shafts again, he continued, "I only get one shot at it, though, so I have to make sure I get it right."
"Toe to toe with the devil, Sam?" She looked down as he finished the wrapping. "How are you going to survive that?"
He acknowledged the unlikelihood with a nod. He'd read of the Spear, years ago, in Bobby's house. Had forgotten about it until now. "We're all kind of hoping that the Spear itself will protect me long enough to the do the job."
"Can it?"
"That's the legend." He set the Spear behind him on the cot.
"When?"
Sam's heart lurched at the tightness in her voice and expression.
"When the archdemons return to the gate. Michael wants to attack with the whole Host." He smoothed the hair back from her face gently. "And I'll go in with them."
"We'll go in with them, Sam. We."
"No." He shook his head as he wondered how to make this clear without it sounding macho and stupid. "I'm not in that place where I can ignore you anymore, Trish. If you're there, I'll be distracted; I'll be worried about you. You need—I need you—to stay here, away from it all."
If he failed, she'd be fighting for her life soon after. That thought brought a greasy roll to his stomach but it was only the truth. If he failed this time, there would be no hope left for humanity.
"Don't make me do that, Sam."
The threadiness in her voice bit at him and he steeled himself against it as best as he could. "I have to. This is it; this is the only chance we'll get with a real hope of succeeding." Resting his hand against her cheek, he let his fingers slip under her jaw to lift her face. He needed to see her eyes. "And I can't fuck it up, Trish."
"You won't," she said, her voice both stubborn and thick.
"I will if you're there. Trish, look at me." He looked into her eyes, pleading for her to understand this. "I can't risk you, I won't risk you. Don't you get that?"
Somewhere between Oregon and Kansas
Ellie lay back in the trunk. The wires weren't coming loose. She wasn't sure if it was because the knots were the wrong kind and tightening the more she pulled, or if the wire or plastic coating had simply bonded too tightly now to be slipped free. In either case, it didn't matter. She wasn't going to be able to get her hands free until they got wherever they were going. She couldn't sleep, but she was trying to rest, to husband her resources as much as possible. Trying to keep her mind empty and dark, her thoughts and emotions held aside.
It wasn't working all that well.
She couldn't stop thinking about the way things had worked out, turning over the factors she knew about, and speculating on those she didn't…when her fate had been changed to accommodate this new prophecy, this new node in the map of destiny?
It was possible it had happened in the moment the elemental had failed to kill her outright, and the Winchesters had turned up before she'd bled out. In her memories, clearer now than they'd been, she could see his face, a blurred image through a half-shut eye and waves of pain, hanging over her. His eyes, filled with worry, dark green and fringed by long dark lashes.
Recognition had not come immediately when they'd met again ten years later. It had been the worry in his eyes that triggered it, as memory had hit him, even as it had hit her. Her heart had frozen mid-beat when recognition arrived, those green eyes were the same as the ones that had haunted her dreams for years. She'd left the bar straight away, had driven away, unable to outrun the return of the dreams, the flashes of memory, not really knowing why but knowing it was important.
Had the path had already been set? Had always been set just that way? She hoped not. Being regularly manipulated by universal powers was not a reassuring thought. God had been intervening in her life, and his, for years. She should have taken that as sign of the things to come, a warning that there was some purpose involving them. Both of them had died, and been brought back, their purpose unfulfilled obviously.
The car thrummed along the road and Ellie sighed. Twenty-twenty hindsight was a great thing; it would have been more useful if she'd made the damned connection a couple of years earlier. Even assuming she had, would the knowledge have changed anything? That was a harder question to answer.
It is hard to contend against one's heart's desire; for whatever it wishes to have, it buys at the cost of soul. The quotation drifted into her mind. Who had it been who'd said that? Heraclitus, her mind answered. The weeping philosopher. He had something there.
There had been plenty of opportunities to walk away. Walk away and never look back. Her heart's desire had won out and now she'd put them all in peril. If she had walked away, would a child have been conceived to match the prophecy? The ritual? Everything she'd read and learned the last year suggested that the forces of destiny couldn't be changed—that the purpose of an action was pursued until it had been done. So she and Dean might have lived on, apart and unhappy, or with others, never feeling the depths and heights of what they were capable of feeling but still drawn back to the endgame.
She frowned impatiently at the internal argument. She'd never know one way or the other. The opportunities had arisen, she'd followed them. End of story. Move onto something else.
In the inside seam of her jacket, a small, slender knife rested in a narrow sheath. It would be the last answer if she couldn't figure out any other way out of this. The ritual would not be completed. That was the important thing.
He would be angry with her, she knew. Furious. He would understand the why, somewhere deep inside, but he would hate her for the decision.
I-84, Wendell, Idaho
The pump was automatic and Dean left it to fill the tank while he went inside the store. He went to the restroom, turning on the tap over the sink and letting the water run into his hands then dunking his face in. The cold soothed the gritty feeling in his eyes and woke him up. A brief glance into the mirror above the sink revealed the hollows and shadows in his face, the wan fluorescent light making a cadaver of him. He turned away before he could see the expression in his eyes.
The store had hot coffee and sandwiches and he got two of each, paying for them then walking back out to the car, the first coffee finished before he'd reached it. He unhooked the pump, got in, and pulled out of the gas station, driving one-handed as he devoured a sandwich. He'd done fourteen hours straight, but he couldn't afford the time to stop and sleep—even for a couple of hours, even if he could sleep. It was only another ten or so hours to Cascadia, and the urgency was building by the mile, by the minute. The thunder of the music in the car was no longer blocking everything out, his thoughts were leaking through, the wall holding back his emotions getting thin.
He'd been ready for his own death. He wasn't ready for hers.
Against the darkness of the road unwinding in front of him, there were a thousand memories of her, stretching back over the years, flashing in and out of his mind's eye, and the harder he tried not to see them, the clearer and faster they came.
As he hit the On ramp and merged with the traffic on the interstate, he turned up the volume a little more, but it made it worse. Too many of the songs were entwined with his memories of them now. Too many hours on the road listening to them together, too many unscheduled stops when they'd left the tape playing and made love in the backseat.
Her smile, her laugh, the long, graceful curve of her throat, the way she looked when she was about to cry, or about to come, the first time he'd seen her, the last time he'd seen her, how she moved, how she felt, how she tasted, watching her fight, watching her dance, watching her frowning at some puzzling piece of information and the small crease between her brows disappearing as the answer came to her. He groaned, the sound coming out of him without volition or warning and his fingers tightened around the wheel as he tried to shut the memories out, to put them back behind the wall. He couldn't think of her now, couldn't remember her as if she were already fucking well gone.
He became aware of the engine's sound, the increase in the revs and looked down at the speedometer, lifting his foot up as he registered the speed. Nine more hours: just fucking well hold it together, he told himself savagely. Then he'd know. Then he could figure out what to do next.
Nine hours later. Cascadia, Oregon
The house was lit but felt empty when Dean pulled up in front of it, turning off the engine and listening for a moment. The deep silence of the night here, of the forest and distant mountains filled the car, disorienting and ominous.
He opened the door and got out, then pulled the Colt from his coat pocket, thumbing off the safety without thought and moving silently up the front steps. The front door was closed, not locked, the interior lights on, the emptiness visible through the sidelights. Dean opened the door cautiously, stepping through and looking around.
There was no sign of a struggle, nothing out of place. The remotes for the claymores were still sitting on the hall table near the front door and he looked at them for a long moment, understanding that the danger hadn't come from the outside, but from within and all his efforts to protect her had been for nothing.
He turned and began to search the house, checking the ground floor room by room. The server room was locked, and he pulled out his set of keys, pushing in the correct one and turning it with the knob.
His eyes swept the room completely before coming back to rest on the three bodies that lay there. Frank was crumpled against one wall, Cassie and Talya lay close together on the floor near the opposite wall. He walked over to Cassie, crouching and looking at the dried blood caked around the head wound on the side of her skull. He laid his fingers against her neck, and started back violently when her eyes opened and she looked at him.
"Christ!"
"Dean?" Cassie struggled up to sit up and Dean held out his hand, taking hers as she turned and touched Talya's arm. "Talya, wake up, Dean's here."
He looked over at the nephilim, now seeing the rough dressing that covered her shoulder. Talya woke, sitting up slowly as she looked at him.
"Dean, Frank—he's still alive but I don't know for how much longer. The phones in here are dead, we couldn't call for help." Cassie looked over at Frank. Dean nodded and crossed the room, setting his gun on the floor as he looked at the pressure bandage over the gunshot wound and saw Frank's chest rising and falling slowly.
He pulled out his phone and dialled 911, giving the operator the details tersely. He looked at Cassie.
"Where's Ellie? What happened?"
"Adam. It was Adam, but he was different—" Cassie said, her eyes filling with tears.
Dean turned to look at Talya. He had no time for this.
"One of the Princes was controlling him, Dean." Talya cut her off. "He took Ellie with him."
There it was. He'd known it would go down like this. "You mean possessing him? I thought angels couldn't—"
"Not possession, just control. I don't know how but his eyes, they weren't his, something else was looking through him out." Talya said. "They're no longer angels, Dean. I don't know what they're capable of."
"His eyes were red—" Cassie said.
"He took Ellie?" Dean cut her off. He didn't want that level of detail. He wanted to be on his way.
Talya nodded. "He made Cassie bind her wrists and ankles. We heard the car leave a few minutes later."
"When?"
"Yesterday morning."
He closed his eyes, his jaw tightening. He could easily have passed them. They would both have going the quickest route. Even if he'd gotten an angel ride here, he still would have been too late to stop his half-brother.
"Where was Twist?"
The two women looked at each other, and Talya shook her head.
"Adam came in alone."
"Alright. Talya, how's your shoulder?" He looked at the dressing. It didn't look like it'd hit the artery or nerves in the shoulder but he could be wrong. "Can you get up?"
"Through and through. It'll be okay." She shifted her balance and got to her feet.
Dean turned to Cassie, his eyes on the wound on the side of her head. "You got dizziness? Nausea? Any bleeding from the nose or ears?"
"No, no concussion," she answered, raising a hand to gingerly feel the wound. "Just a sore head."
"The police and paramedics are coming. I need you to tell them all about Adam and how he took Ellie. Tell them you heard say he was going to Kansas with her. Alright?" He looked from one to the other as they nodded. "That's important. Kidnapping and crossing state lines brings in the Feds. He might already be in Kansas by now, but maybe not and maybe they'll get lucky and catch them before he gets there."
"Wait a minute, where are you going?" Cassie asked, her gaze pointed on his face. "You look like shit."
"Back."
"Dean, you need to rest for a short time at least."
"I'm already more than a day behind them." He shook his head and turned to Talya. "Make sure you tell the police everything. Tell them he said he was going to kill her in Kansas; they have to get onto to this straight away."
She nodded.
"Stay with Frank. Stay together."
He turned around and walked fast up the hall. He needed to be out of here before the authorities came up the road. Exhaustion was dragging at him, riddling his body. He'd have to stop somewhere and get at least a little sleep if he could. Running himself off the road wouldn't help anyone.
As he opened the front door and went down the steps, he looked up at the millions of stars filling the night sky. Was this the plan, he wondered? Destroying innocent lives? Taking every one of those he loved?
The stars twinkled back at him, offering nothing but cool beauty.