Chapter 10 Wayfarer
Forest Edge, Oregon
Dean opened his eyes, then closed them again, a flush of heat running through his nervous system as hands ran down his back, curling around his sides, sliding over the sensitive skin of his stomach and down to his thighs. He shivered and rolled over, looking at Ellie.
"Are you, uh, objectifying me?"
She looked at him for a moment, considering. "Probably. Is that a problem?"
Her fingers curled around him, stroking him, slipping between his legs. He groaned, back tightening as the sensations spread through him, generating a white heat that was building far too quickly.
"No…uh, no…" He caught her hands and held them, rolling onto her and looking through half-closed eyes at her face, catching his breath. "No…problem…" He dipped his head, his mouth trailing up her neck, sending a cascade of tremors through both of them. "But…we're not…in a…rush…are we?"
Ellie arched under him. It was a side-effect of the middle trimester of pregnancy, the raging hormones in her body. Nature, having achieved her goal, rewarding in her own way, but all that intellectual knowledge, of the how and the why didn't stop the intense ache in her body, didn't temper the irresistible yearning, the insatiable itch, the oh-my-god-I-need-you-now ravenous hunger she could feel, making her buck and squirm as he took his time, holding her pinned beneath him.
Dean knew about the ache. Carrying Rosie, Ellie had told him how it had felt, a demand in her body for him, skin flushed and tingling, the impossibility of relief without feeling him inside of her. It wasn't torture, he told himself, his tongue moving slowly around her breast, hearing her little hitching moans, feeling the involuntary shudders running through her, his hand sliding down her body, stroking her thighs, it was payback…for all the times she'd set him on fire, all the times she'd turned him inside-out, all the times she'd driven him out of his mind.
She was super-heated and slick as he rubbed his hand over her, looking up at her face when his fingers pushed through the swollen folds, into that molten heat. Her back arched high, hips thrusting against them, and he felt a huge throb in himself, watching her face screw up, her lips part. This was the problem, the more he turned her on, the closer he brought her, the harder it was to keep any semblance of control himself. He ducked his head, trying to narrow his focus to her breast, to the taste and feel of the nipple in his mouth, but he could feel her tightening around his fingers, the muscles rippling and bulging, hear her struggling for air, breathing ragged, interspersed with low keening noises that were—again—everting him, his heart pounding hard against the base of his throat.
She'd taught him to separate feeling from thought, to separate mind from body, for hunting, for working together, to keep his mind clear. It worked; when they were working—sometimes, most of the time—but not here, not now, not when they were making love and he watched her struggle against his hold, her body actually writhing under him, hot and sweet and begging him. He couldn't hold out against that.
He sucked in a deep breath. Driving into her, the aftershocks coruscating around him, heat and pressure and a silken softness, enclosing him like living velvet. His senses swamped in intense pleasure, his nerves frying with turgid sensation. There was no point even trying to pretend to himself that he was going to be able to hold out because it was too fucking much already. He tried to go slow; head bowed against her shoulder, fists curled tight into the soft cotton sheets either side of her, balls so tight and full that every time they touched her if felt as if they were being squeezed. Thought, coherent or otherwise, had fled. He was pushing into her faster, harder, so deep that he couldn't even take a breath; unable to slow, her hips bucking wildly against him until he felt every part of him contract and turn, for a microsecond, to stainless steel. Then she was pulsing around him and he was free falling, mind, heart, soul, body joined together, oblivious to anything else, to everything else but the pleasure that pumped through him.
This time, the tremors and shivers and shudders, the aftershocks, had taken a long time to stop coming. He lifted his head slightly, looking at Ellie's face. Her eyes were closed, the lashes trembling very slightly against her cheeks, her mouth parted, lips full and plump and swollen from the kisses he couldn't even remember giving her.
"You know, sooner or later…I'm gonna have a heart attack," he said, shifting his weight over one arm.
Her eyes opened a little, pupils huge, as she looked at him. "Nah…that's why we keep up our training, so you have the stamina for this."
He snorted softly, head dropping against his shoulder. "Oh…I thought that was so we wouldn't die when we're on a hunt."
She shook her head fractionally, eyes dropping closed again. "Hunting's much easier."
"Are you falling asleep?" He lifted his head. "You wake me out of a perfectly good dream, force me into mindblowing sex, and now you're actually going back to sleep?"
"Uh huh…" She opened one eye reluctantly. "Um…could you…?"
He smiled, easing his body to one side and leaning forward to kiss her. "Yeah."
Dean walked into the kitchen, glancing around as he wondered what they needed in addition to milk and bread. At the table, John and Rosie were eating bowls of cereal. Did they need more cereal? He saw the parcel post note from the post office and slipped it free of the magnet holding it to the fridge, shoving it into his pocket. He could swing by the post office on the way home.
"Where's Mom?" John looked up from his cereal, a droplet of milk trailing down his chin.
"She's sleeping, kiddo," he said distractedly. "I gotta go into town, get some groceries and stuff. You two coming along?"
"Yeah." John slid off his chair, carrying his bowl to the sink. Rosie looked up.
"S'cream?"
Dean glanced at the clock, smiling. "Sure, eight-thirty in the morning, why not? Don't tell Mom."
They shook their heads in understanding unison and grinned at him.
"Go upstairs and get dressed; we're going in five minutes."
Dean drove automatically, his body and the car connected so deeply, with such familiarity, that aside for checking for other traffic, he didn't have to think about what he was doing, and his thoughts revolved around the somewhat surprising realisation he'd had earlier that in mid-October, it would be their sixth anniversary.
It wasn't like he'd forgotten everything that had happened in the last six years—or that he could—but they'd gone by so goddamned quickly. He glanced in the mirror. John at school, starting first grade in another month. Rosie starting kindergarten in the fall. How'd that happened so fast?
It'd only been the last four years that they'd been really settled. Living as normal a life as was possible, considering what they did, who they were, what was generally after them. With memories of the year in Cicero, he'd been doubtful it would work, this normal life, but it had worked, amazingly well. Their little community had grown and changed over those years, but not a lot. With the help of Ray and Frank, they'd re-established contact and communication with a few other groups of hunters around the country, enough to handle what they found, at least until this year, and with quite a few of the people who lived on the periphery of the hunting life, those who dealt in the materials and items hunters needed, who had the knowledge, or specialised skills they needed. He and Sam had found a balance between what they had to do, and what they needed for themselves.
Finally.
He knew how it felt to come home after a job, walk in the door, grab a beer and try to talk the people he was living with. Most of the time, it had been okay, not hard, not uncomfortable, just…not much else. That'd surprised him at the time. It had made him think about what it was about family and normal life he wanted so much. He hadn't really known the answer back then. Hadn't known exactly what it was that was missing.
In the last four years, they'd spent a lot of time in research or finding things they needed. Jobs were divided up between the hunters and that seemed to be working out okay. He'd done jobs with Ellie, Sam, Twist and Garth since North Carolina, had hunted with Trent and with Katherine, with Marcus, Frank, Moses, Jeremy, Steve and Trip. He knew he could trust any one of them at any time. They had each other's backs and there were no fights, no egos…just professionals doing their jobs. It had been…easy. Sometimes, not too often, but sometimes, it had even been fun.
Last night, he'd come home after spending most of the day with Marcus and Frank trying to figure out the pattern of Asase Ya's movements from the satellite photos Frank had extracted from various databases, and John and Rosie had raced down the stairs yelling for him to pick them up, to play a game, to tickle them. Ellie had come out of the kitchen, and had leaned against the doorway, her face lit up with laughter as she'd watched them together, a cold beer dangling from her hand for him when he'd manage to satisfy the kids' demands for long enough, a kiss that reached right through him when he bent to take it from her.
Dinner, all together, and teaching John to how to fold a paper plane that would outfly his Uncle Sammy's, listening to Ellie reading to Rosie, her voice rising and falling as she brought the characters to life. Baths and pajamas, brushing teeth and bedtime stories, wet goodnight kisses and small hands curled inside of his.
Stretching out on the sofa, talking about the good, the bad and the mediocre events of their days, catching the last half of Men In Black on the idiot box, and feeling…feeling so normal it was kind of weird. Normal weird. Weird normal. Their kind of normal anyway. Relaxed. Peaceful. Contented enough to have started purring, if he'd been that way inclined. They'd watched the movie, and loaded the dishwasher, checked the protection on the house and gone upstairs, and it had hit him that what had been missing in Indiana had been companionship. Honesty. Being able to be himself; no need to lie, no need to hide, not with Ellie, not in this community, not in this life.
"S'cream, Daddy!" Rosie was pressed against the window as they drove past the drug store. "S'cream! S'cream!"
"Okay, sweetheart, we're stopping." He saw a parking slot to the left of the store and slipped the black car into it.
The children exited the car as if ejected and Dean followed them into the store, picking up Rosie up so she could see the big buckets of flavoured ice-creams under the glass counter. After much deliberation and discussion, he bought them each a cone. The morning was already hot, the sunshine bright in a cloudless sky and he didn't feel guilty about the treat, but there was no real need to tell Ellie about it, either.
The grocery store was almost empty, too early and too hot for most of the regular shoppers, and they walked slowly down the aisles, Rosie sitting the cart and John weaving from side to side looking at the items on the shelves, both children leaving small trails of melting ice cream on the speckled vinyl floor.
"What kind of spaghetti does Mom get?" Dean asked him, frowning at the choice presented in front of him.
"The yellow pack," John answered, staring at the packs of dinosaur-shaped pasta. "Can we get these too, Dad?"
Dean glanced down at them and shrugged. "Sure."
The fresh food section was just before the checkouts and he looked over the fruit and vegetables. "Does Mom get this stuff from here, John?" He looked around for his son.
"No. From the other store, down the street," John said, holding up a watermelon. "Can we get this?"
He looked at the melon. Chances were it was neither biodynamic nor organic, he thought. It would be cool and refreshing in the afternoon heat though. "Yeah, put it in."
The cart had seemed fine when it was just holding Rosie, but as more and more weight went into it, it showed its inherent problems. By the time he'd pushed it sideways to the checkout, he was sweating. How did you pick a good cart from the lemons, he wondered vaguely?
"That'll be one hundred and twenty-eight dollars, sir," the girl on the checkout said, smiling at Rosie. "Cute kid."
"Yeah, thanks." Dean handed over the cash and fought with the cart to get clear of the narrow aisle. "John, stay close."
He managed to get the recalcitrant shopping cart to the Impala, and unloaded the groceries into the trunk. John was keen to push the cart back to the store and empty, it went easily then they walked down the street to the greengrocer, picking up a couple of sacks of fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs and a couple of gallons of milk.
"Okay," Dean said, glancing at his watch as he buckled Rosie back into the car seat. "Just the post office and we can go home."
"What's at the post office?" John asked, handing Rosie a handful of cold grapes from the paper bag.
"Just a package I need to pick up." He glanced back at them. "You guys can wait here; I won't be long, okay?"
"Yep." John pulled another handful from the bag for himself.
Dean drove down until he could make a left and turned the car around, heading back out on the main street. The post office was the second last corner before they left the town and there was a parking space right outside.
Inside, the clerk took his notice, and disappeared into the back of the office, returning a minute later with a box wrapped in plain brown paper, and addressed to him. He thanked her, and walked back out to the car, frowning as he read the address. It had been handwritten in a thick black marker, no return address anywhere on the package and the postage mark showed Sioux Falls as the address of origin—or at least, he corrected himself, where it'd been posted from.
He put it on the seat beside him and started the car, heading back out of town for home.
"There's Aunty Trish," John leaned forward, across the back of the front seat.
Dean slowed down when they came up to his brother's driveway, rolling down the window.
"Glad I caught you. I thought I'd take the kids down to the pool this morning…do you guys want to come?" Tricia stopped next to the car.
Dean glanced up the road toward their house. "Ellie was sleeping when I left…"
"I can take the kids with us, it's no problem, Dean," Trish said, looking into the back seat. "You two want to go swimming today with us?"
"Yes, please!" John looked at his father. "Can we, please, Dad, can we go, it's so hot!"
"Swim!" Rosie crowed behind him. Dean shrugged.
"Yeah, it's okay with me," He looked back over his shoulder. "What about swimwear?"
"Rosie can wear Laura's old ones, and Marc has a few spares that'll fit John." Trish opened the back door, and unbuckled Rosie, taking her hand as the little girl climbed out. "I like to get them down there and back before lunch, gets all the excess energy out and it's not so hot in the morning."
"Thought cooling off was the main idea?" Dean looked at her quizzically.
"Not when you're talking about sun-block, t-shirts, umbrellas and the rest of the stuff you need to stay through the day," she said, with a small grimace. "I'll bring them home by twelve, okay?"
"We'll probably come down soon as well, but thanks, Trish," he said, watching them walk up the short curving drive to Sam's house.
When they went inside, he put the car in gear and continued up the road, making the right into the drive, and parking in front of the house.
He unloaded the groceries, setting the bags on the kitchen counter and bench top, and dropping the package on the table. It was barely past nine-thirty and he couldn't hear a sound in the house, a reliable sign Ellie was still crashed out.
He unpacked the groceries, and made a fresh pot of coffee, then picked up the package, tearing the paper wrapping off the cardboard box. There wasn't anything special about the box itself. He picked up a knife from the chopping board, and slid the blade under the tape holding the lid down, flipping it off. Inside, thin, coloured tissue paper hid the contents. He pulled it aside and found himself looking at a bracelet, thick and heavy, crusted with roughly cut gems. Under it, he could see a note, the same thick black handwriting as the address on the wrapping. He reached in, and lifted the bracelet.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Dean leaned against the shelving in Bobby's basement, watching as Bobby dropped the match into the drum. Something about it was bothering him, but he couldn't get it, couldn't make it come clear. The ingredients for the summoning burst into flame and Crowley appeared, a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, staring at them, then looking down at the devil's trap.
"No. No! NO! Come on!" Crowley said furiously, looking from Bobby to Dean.
"Don't act so surprised," Bobby said dryly, walking around the desk and settling back against it, arms crossed.
"My new boss is going to kill me for even talking to you lads," Crowley said grimly, looking uneasily at them.
Dean cut him off, "Well, you're lucky we're not stabbing you in your scuzzy face, you little piece—"
From the chair in the corner of the basement, Sam overrode him, "Whoa, wait! What new boss?"
"Castiel, you giraffe."
"Is your boss?" Bobby looked at him, his disbelief lacing the words.
Crowley cut him off sharply, feeling sweat crawling down his neck at the position he found himself in. "Is everybody's boss. What do you think he's going to do if he finds out we've been conspiring?" He looked at them. "You do want to conspire, don't you?"
"No. We want you to just stand there and look pretty," Bobby said sarcastically. Crowley shrugged.
"Listening."
"We need a spell…to bind Death," Dean said, articulating each word carefully.
"Bind?" Crowley's brows shot up. "Enslave Death? You having a laugh?"
"Lucifer did it."
"That's Lucifer." Crowley pointed out, looking as if he was wondering what the hell the three of them had been drinking.
"A spell's a spell," Sam cut in, his shoulder lifting in a slight shrug.
Crowley turned from Dean to look at him. "You really believe you can handle that kind of horsepower? You're delusional!"
Dean raised his voice a little, overriding the demon's words. "Death is the only player on the board left, that has the kind of juice to take Cas."
"They'll both mash us like peas," Crowley said slowly and clearly. "Why should I help with a suicide mission?"
Bobby straightened up, and walked toward Crowley. "Look, do you really want Cas running the universe?"
The demon, lately puppet King of Hell, looked down at his bottle and poured himself another drink.
"What makes you think I can find it, anyway?"
Bobby gave him a humourless smile. "Because that's the kind of scumbag you are, Crowley. A spell like that…lying around in Hell. You can find it."
Dean looked at him, turning back to look at Crowley. Something was missing. This wasn't…he didn't know exactly what was wrong, but it didn't feel right.
"We need that spell, Crowley," he said, seeing the demon look at him curiously. "You need us to do this."
Forest Edge, Oregon
Ellie stretched out, eyes still closed, feeling the looseness of her muscles and smiling a little at the memory attached to that. She turned her head and looked at the clock on the nightstand, eyes widening as she saw the time. Ten o'clock. Some damned sleep in.
She threw the covers back and swung her legs out, walking to the bathroom and running the shower. The water was a little too warm as she washed quickly, sluicing the last of his scent from her skin and hair, and she turned the shower to cold, standing under the freezing fall for a minute to cool off.
The air in the bedroom was already warm, and the open windows let in more of the late summer heat. Letting the venetians down and angling the blinds to block the sun as it rose higher, she left the windows open with the hope of a breeze later on.
In soft, old jeans and a light sleeveless blouse, she walked downstairs, bare feet soundless along the hardwood floors and over the thick rugs, listening. A vague memory of the morning conversation returned.
It took a second to register his body, lying on the kitchen floor as she entered, then she was kneeling beside him, her fingertips against the side of his neck, relief tempered by anxiety flooding her as she felt the strong, steady pulse. He was breathing easily, despite his crumpled position. She straightened his arms and legs, rolling him onto his side and lifted an eyelid with her thumb, frowning as she saw the pupil contracting and expanding slightly, as if the light were changing around him. His eye was clear, but moving. She glanced at the other one, moving as well under the closed lid.
Hallucination? Dreaming?
There was something else, something she was missing. Sitting back on her heels, she looked down at him. She could take him down to the ER in Corvallis, get him checked out but it might not be their kind of thing—
Her head snapped up as she realised that the house was still silent.
John.
Rosie.
The sense of missing something vanished as she shot to her feet and started looking around, running from the kitchen, through the rest of the house to the back porch to look out over the garden which was as empty and quiet as the house. She spun around when she heard the shrill ring of the phone, slamming back through the French doors to pick up the handset in the kitchen.
"Hello?"
"Ellie? Hey, it's Sam."
"Sam, Dean's unconscious and I can't find the kids—"
The words came out like bullets, and she realised abruptly she was close to screaming, her fear close and hot.
"What? Ellie, the kids are with Trish. I'll be there in a minute, alright?"
"With Trish?" Her lungs moved again.
"Yeah, Dean dropped them off here and Trish took them all to the pool. It's okay, they're safe," he said. "They're safe. I'll be there in a minute."
Ellie put the handset down as he hung up, setting it on the table and pulling in a deep breath. Safe. John and Rosie were safe. That was good. She looked down at Dean. Not safe, not fine, not good.
The box on the table caught her eye as she turned to kneel beside him again, and she looked into it, seeing a chunky metal bracelet, sitting slightly tilted in a nest of tissue paper. She looked from the bracelet to Dean and closed her eyes, the fear returning, the taste at the back of her throat bitter.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
"Well, at least he's not curled up under the sink." Bobby looked up at Dean who was leaning on the table in the kitchen, watching Sam broodingly.
Dean glanced at him and back to Sam, sitting in the other room. "Yeah…no, he's just sitting there, silently, field-stripping his weapon."
He straightened up, walking around to the chair on the other side of the table and took Sam's phone out of his brother's jacket.
"What are you doing?" Bobby's eyes narrowed as he watched him.
"Turning on his GPS, case he decides to fly the cuckoo's nest." He slipped the phone back into the pocket, glancing again into the living room where Sam was still assembling and disassembling the Taurus.
"And you?" Bobby got up from the chair and walked to the sink, turning and leaning back against it, his face shadowed. "How are you doing?"
"Seriously Bobby, it ain't like he's hexed, you know? I mean, what if it's the kind of crazy you can't fix?" Dean's brows drew together as the worry rose over the wall again.
"Yeah, I'm…I'm worried too, but humour me for a second. How are you?"
"Who cares?" He looked at Bobby in frustration. "Don't you think our mailbox is a little full right now? I'm fine."
He walked slowly to the counter, reaching for the almost-empty coffee pot next to Bobby.
"Right." Bobby inclined his head slightly. "And weren't you pissed at him when he said the same thing just a couple hours before he spilled his marbles all over the floor?"
"Yeah…well." Dean poured himself a coffee from the pot. "I'm not Sam, okay? I keep my marbles in a lead friggin' box. I'm fine. Really."
"Of course. Yeah." Bobby sighed, looking sideways at him. "You just lost one of the best friends you ever had, your brother's in the bell jar, and Purgatory's most wanted are surfing the sewer lines, but yeah, yeah, I get it. You're—you're fine."
"Good." Dean smiled briefly and walked back to the table, sitting down in front of the laptop.
"Course, if at any time you want to decide that's utter horse crap, well, I'll be where I always am. Right here," Bobby said, looking at him.
"What? You want to do couples' yoga, or you want to get back to hunting the big bads?" Dean asked. He couldn't deal with Sam's problems, the world's problems and his own problems all at the same time. Something had to go on the back-burner and there were no prizes for guessing which that would be. Bobby knew that, he didn't know why they had to go through this conversation or one very much like it every single goddamned time.
"Shut up." Bobby stared at the back of the younger man's head. "Idjit."
Dean pulled out his phone, bringing up the list of numbers in it and scrolling slowly down through them. He didn't know who he was looking for, only that in there somewhere there was someone he did want to talk to, someone who could help him. But he couldn't find the number.
He wasn't fine. He was such a long way from fine he couldn't even see it from here. He couldn't unload on Bobby, not in the middle of trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. He sure as hell couldn't unload on Sam, who was hanging onto reality by the ends of his fingernails. His chest was aching and his head pounding from keeping all this shit down under the fortifications in his mind, and he desperately wanted, needed some help.
But there was no one who could help him.
Forest Edge, Oregon
Sam looked at the bracelet in the box and let out his breath. "Cursed object."
Ellie nodded. "I don't know if we should take him to the ER or not. I don't think he's had a stroke or an aneurysm or any kind of damage. I think he's just not here."
Sam frowned as he knelt beside her, beside his brother. "A hallucination?"
"A powerful one." She rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. "I don't know what he's seeing, but he's seeing something, Sam, seeing it for real, in his head."
"You call Frank?"
She nodded. "I took a photo of that thing, and sent it to him straight away. He's looking."
He straightened up, looking at the bracelet, the tissue paper surrounding it. "Ellie, there's a note in here."
She looked up, her breath sucking in audibly. "Don't touch it."
"No. Have you got anything I can get it out with?" He looked around the kitchen.
"Tongs, in the third drawer to your right," she said. "Don't touch anything inside that box with your skin."
"No." Sam pulled out the tongs and pushed the bracelet aside, scrunching the tissue paper to the other side. The note was visible and he lifted it out of the box, setting it onto a paper serviette that Ellie laid on the table.
Dean,
Something I picked up in Gaza and thought you'd like
The rest of the note's contents were folded underneath. Sam looked in the drawer and pulled out a second pair of tongs, holding the edge of the note with one pair as he unfolded it with the other.
to see for yourself. A whole new reality waiting for you.
It was unsigned. Sam bent and peered at the handwriting, but he didn't recognise it.
Ellie had dialled Frank. "Frank? It's Egyptian…possibly. Start there. No, he hasn't changed…I know."
She looked at Sam. "Any other ideas?"
He shook his head. "We better get him upstairs before the kids get back. Bedroom okay?"
She nodded. "If you can take his shoulders, I'll get his feet."
Spokane, Washington
The woman came through the door and Dean leaned back on the sofa, watching her catch sight of him in the mirror, watching her slowly turn to face him.
"Next time you run, you should change your license plates. Keeping the same tags makes you easy to track," he said, not knowing why he was offering the advice, given that he was here to kill her. Put her off her guard? He didn't know.
"Who are—"
He cut her off, getting up and walking toward her. "I'm Sam's brother. And you are Amy Pond, the Bozeman mortician who went missing. There's people looking for you."
She backed as he got closer. "Sam sent you?"
He stopped, looking at her. "Sam doesn't know I'm here."
"But he told you…my son—"
"I know." He didn't want to talk about it with her. Not really. Not about a child who would be motherless, not about how she felt. "I know. But people…they are who they are. No matter how hard you try, you are what you are. You will kill again."
"I won't. I swear," Amy said, her eyes widening fractionally as they met his.
He didn't know what she saw in them. It might have been emptiness. He didn't feel anything. Just the imperative thought that she was a monster…and the sure knowledge of what he had to do about that.
He took a step toward her and she didn't move, staring up at him. "Trust me, I'm an expert. Maybe in a year, maybe ten…but eventually, the other shoe will drop. It always does." He slid the knife in easy, angled upward under the sternum and into her heart. He held her gaze with his own, seeing the pupils turning to slits, the surprise in her eyes as the pain hit, and then the icy numbness.
"I'm sorry." The words came out harder than he thought he would. Perhaps because he wasn't. A part of him wasn't. She was a monster and she would kill again. He was pretty sure she would.
Her gaze dropped to the knife's hilt then rose again, her eyes unfocussed. She swayed as the blood stopped pumping, all her strength gone. Dean reached out and caught her arms, easing her back onto the bed gently. It had probably been the easiest kill of his life; she hadn't fought back, hadn't fought at all, hadn't expected it. He pulled the knife from the wound, looking down at her. It would be harder to tell Sam, he thought bleakly.
As he turned for the door he saw the boy, standing there against the light, face pinched with disbelief, with pain. Dean shoved down his instinctive reaction, his voice gruff with the effort. "You got someone you can go to?"
The boy nodded, the movement slight. Dean forced himself to look on the child as a monster. Not to see the boy. To see what he would become. To see something that he wouldn't feel guilty over making an orphan.
"You ever kill anyone?" he growled out the question, squashing the flutter of doubt—not doubt, never doubt.
The boy shook his head, his eyes fixed on Dean's face.
"Well, if you do, I'll come back for you." It was supposed to have come out a warning. Just a warning. It didn't sound like a warning. It sounded like a threat, like a promise.
"The only person I'm gonna kill is you," the boy said, his voice flat with cold certainty.
The certainty shook him. The kid was…what…ten? Eleven, maybe? He shook off the feeling in his gut, the feeling that he might deserve to die at the hands of the child standing in front of him.
"Well, look me up in a few years." He tried to lighten his tone, but it sounded like bravado, even to his ears. "Assuming I live that long."
That part was true, at least, he thought, lifting his hands and skirting the boy as the child ran past to his mother. What the fuck was wrong with him? He killed monsters. That was what he did. That was all he fucking did. Why did this whole thing feel so fucking off?
He stopped at the door, looking back. The kid was on the bed beside his mother. His dead mother. Another kid without a mother. That bit deeply, more deeply than he'd realised it would.
Had it been the right thing to do? What if Sam had been right, what if she could have controlled it?
What if fucking pigs had fucking wings and could fly him the fuck out of here, he snarled at himself. It was too fucking late now. Right or wrong, it was done.
He turned away, and walked down the narrow path to the street, feeling the tension building in him. He didn't want to think about right and wrong. She was a monster. She would've killed again. The other shoe always drops. It always does. It had with Sam…
He stopped, leaning against the wall for a moment, his heart rate suddenly accelerating. Sam wasn't going to understand this.
I don't tell Sam. He won't find out. The thought brought a shudder to his stomach. Lying to his brother now. Another secret between them. Perfect. Just fucking perfect.
Straightening and wiping his mouth, he continued to walk down the sidewalk to the car, going straight to the trunk, wiping the blade clean, replacing it in the graphite sheath under the false lid. He looked down at his hands as he dropped the lid over the well. They were shaking. He wanted a drink. Maybe two or three.
He was holding too much inside, and he knew it. He didn't know how the fuck he was going to be able to keep it together when the hits were coming so fast and so hard. He clenched his hands into fists, lifting his head and pulling in a deep breath.
Stop it, he told himself. Worry about Sam. Just Sam. Everything else can wait its turn.
He wanted to look at his phone again, but there was nothing there, no one who could help. He didn't know why the fucking compulsion to keep checking it was so strong. There'd never been anyone he could talk to…unload to…feel safe with. Just Sam, and Bobby, and they were both strung out with their own shit anyway.
Forest Edge, Oregon
They both heard the sound of the van coming down the drive, the crunch of the gravel under tyres as it turned around and pulled up in front of the house. Ellie looked at Sam.
"I'll stay with him," Sam said softly. "Tell Trish I'll be home in a bit. I'll see Frank first."
She nodded, and walked of the room, hurrying down the stairs. John was walking up the porch steps, Trish behind him with Rosie in her arms as she opened the front door. Trish smile disappeared when she took in Ellie's expression, looking over Rosie's head with worried eyes.
"What's happening?"
Ellie took her daughter, smiling at the half-closed eyes. "Cursed object, we think," she said quietly.
The smile disappeared as she looked back at Trish. "Sam's upstairs with him, he'll go check with Frank on his way home, a bit later. Dean's out, trapped in some kind of hallucination, we think. Unless we can break the curse—or figure out what it is—he's trapped, somewhere, we don't know where."
Tricia nodded. "Ellie, do you want John and Rosie to stay with us until…until Dean's okay again?"
Ellie shook her head. "There's not much I can do right now, and looking after them, being with them…"
"Yeah, it will keep you busy." Tricia agreed. "If you change your mind, or if you need to do anything, just call…okay?"
She looked down at Ellie, freezing as she saw the shimmer in her eyes. She'd never seen Ellie cry, no matter how bad things had gotten, never seen her shaken and helpless. It scared her more than the not knowing what was wrong with Dean.
"We'll figure this out," she said, hoping that was true. Ellie nodded, her gaze cutting away.
"Thanks. Yeah, we will."
Closing the door behind Trish, Ellie heard the van pull out a moment later. A nap for Rosie, she thought, and something to eat for John.
She walked up the stairs slowly, going into her daughter's room and settling her into her bed. Rosie gave a deep sigh as she rolled onto her side, her eyes opening slightly as Ellie drew the curtains across the windows.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, baby?" Ellie walked back to the side of the bed, crouching down next to Rosie.
Rosie lifted her hand and touched Ellie's cheek very lightly. "You sad?"
"A little bit, Rosie," Ellie said gently, tucking Rosie's hand beneath the covers again. "I'll be better soon."
"I t-t-tied."
"I can see that." She leaned forward and kissed Rosie's forehead, pushing the copper curls back. "How about a little nap, till you feel awake again?"
Rosie nodded and yawned, closing her eyes again.
John was climbing the stairs as she came down.
"Mom, where's Dad?" He looked up at her.
"He's tired, hon, he's taking a nap." She took his hand as he turned to follow her downstairs. "What do you want for lunch?"
"Aunty Trish got us sandwiches. I'm full," he said. "Can I play the video game until Dad wakes up?"
Ellie sighed. "You can play for a while, baby."
He whooped and ran for the living room and Ellie turned around and went back up the stairs.
Sam looked up as she came into the bedroom. "Are you okay for a while?"
"Yeah, Rosie's sleeping and John'll stay hooked to the TV until I call him off." She smiled at him. "Tell Frank to call me as soon as he knows anything?"
"Of course." He stood up, looking down at his brother, then shifting his gaze to Ellie. "It's going to be okay."
She nodded. Everyone said that because they all had to. The truth was that Dean could stay like this…for a long time. A long, long time, if they couldn't figure out what the key to unlocking the curse was, if they couldn't find a way to break it. He could lie there, perfectly healthy and completely unreachable, locked inside his head for the rest of his life.
"I'll be back in a while, okay?" Sam said, turning for the door. "Sooner if we get a break."
"Okay."
It was just after nine when Ellie heard the knock at the front door.
The afternoon had passed in a series of jerky, uneven snapshots to her. Playing with John and Rosie, making them dinner, bathtime and the early evening had passed quickly, with time slowing down every time she'd checked on Dean, seeing him unchanged, his eyes still moving rapidly behind the lids, his pulse occasionally speeding up or slowing down. She still wasn't sure if it wouldn't be better to have him in a hospital, where if anything happened, they could hang onto him, keep him tethered to life. The stopper was that few hospitals remained impartial if a ritual had to be performed on their premises.
She got up and opened the door, stepping aside as Frank came in, followed by Sam.
"What?" She looked at Frank, fighting down her reaction as she saw his face in the bright light of the hallway.
"You won't like it," he warned her.
She made an impatient noise in her throat, scowling at him. "I don't like any of this, Frank. Spit it out."
"You're on the clock."
She closed her eyes. "How long?"
"When do you think he touched the object?" Frank opened the file he held.
Ellie looked at Sam.
"Uh, Trish said she saw him around nine thirty-five, and Ellie found him on the floor at ten fifteen."
"Then a little under thirteen hours." Frank looked up from the file. "If we haven't broken the curse by then, it won't matter what we do, he'll be trapped in whatever alternative reality he's in for good."
Dearborn, Michigan
Dean walked out of the hotel, reeling from Warren's admissions. This was…unbelievable.
"What is it?" Sam asked, walked behind him. He looked back at him and turned around.
"What is it, Sam?" He gestured futilely. "Um, how about a drunk driver, Michael Vick, a murderer?" he said, frustration filling his voice.
"And?"
"And…when did our black-and-white case turn to mud?" Dean turned away. "I'm just saying I'm having a hard time not rooting for the ghosts on this one."
Sam shook his head. "No, you said it yourself—it's not on us to judge."
"Yeah," Dean said, turning back and scowling. "Except that's complete crap. Everybody judges all day long. Look, I'm just supposed to ignore what that guy did?
"We've shot people, Dean. More than two," Sam said bluntly, straightening up.
"Yeah, you know what? When those ghosts come to kick my ass, they've got a compelling case." He could see Sam was starting to gather his argument together and his irritation rose. It wasn't Sam. It was the fucking shades of grey that had suddenly invaded his life. He didn't do grey well. He couldn't even see grey half the fucking time.
"So, what, you're saying—what? You don't want to work the job anymore?" Sam's voice held an edge of frustration.
"I'm just saying, you know, one simple friggin' day on the job…is that too much to ask?" Dean dropped his gaze. He wasn't going to fucking quit the job. He just didn't want to have to think so goddamned hard about every decision he made, every single minute of the day.
"Well, look. I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna go try and find that barn. You coming?" Sam asked a moment later, his tone conciliatory.
The idea of riding with Sam, hearing the reasoned, rational, logical arguments from his brother suddenly hit him. He couldn't do it. He couldn't.
"I'm gonna check the bar." Dean turned away, heading for Neal's.
"To work or drink?" Sam called tersely.
"I haven't decided." He gave his brother a humourless smile and turned away.
He couldn't look at his thoughts, couldn't look at his feelings. Hadn't been able to get that shit straight since Hell. There were too many mines in his mind, too many unexplored, unexploded bombs waiting for him there. It was safer not to go prodding and poking around in there. Sam didn't get it. Didn't get any of it, despite the fact that he knew better than anyone else the toll a tour in Hell took.
He missed Lisa and Ben. He hadn't been happy there, not really, not at all, most of the time, but he missed having someone hold him when the pain got really bad. He missed just being able to touch someone, even if he didn't say a word, even if he couldn't say anything. It had given him a sense of being human, a sense of being…something. Well, that was a closed door now so there wasn't much point in thinking about it.
He hunched against the cool afternoon and kept walking, his feet seeming to know the way to the bar.
The last three years…he'd overloaded…he could feel it, feel the bulging weight of his feelings pushing against his control. Bad decisions, scars that wouldn't heal, god, he had so much fucking scar tissue inside that it was amazing he could feel anything at all, but he did, he felt every mistake, the people he'd let down, every life that he'd taken, the ghosts of everyone he'd loved, had led to their deaths, or put into danger.
He stopped, eyes screwed tightly shut, breath whistling out between his teeth as he fought against the monstrous wave of pain and guilt and shame that was breaking free.
"Hey, buddy, you alright?" The voice was behind him, to his left, and his fists closed involuntarily, automatically.
"Yeah, dizzy. Need something to eat." He managed to get out, opening his eyes and looking behind him. The man standing there was an ordinary guy. Dean's flickered look took in the inexpensive clothes, wedding ring glinting gold on one hand, cheap watch, the concern in his face and eyes. He stretched his face into a smile, of sorts, nodding to the guy. "I'm fine."
I'm fine. I'm fine. Really. Fine.
The thought looped insanely in his head and he watched the man walk away, unconvinced, glancing back over his shoulder.
Fine. Fine. Fine.
The devil had risen because his brother had put his trust in a demon instead of in him. Hounded and hunted across the country, pursued by angels, hunting Horsemen, looking for any way to stop the end of the world. Losing Ellen. Losing Jo. Then losing Sam. The year with Lisa and Ben, unable to let them in, unable to give them what they wanted, but taking what he could get, knowing that his dream of living a normal life had been a pipedream because how could he ever be himself with them? Lies and nightmares, drinking to forget his brother, drinking to forget his dreams, drinking to block out the pain and torment of pretending every fucking minute that he wasn't who he was, because who he was, down deep, where he lived and breathed…that wasn't good enough, not human enough, not normal enough.
He staggered to the building wall, and hunched into the doorway, his face turned into the shadows, muscles rigid with the effort of controlling the mess in his mind.
Last year's series of cluster fucks. Sam. Lisa. Ben. Hurting them and feeling that knife in his own gut, twisting endlessly. Betrayed by his own blood. Another knife point. Betrayed by his friend, his best friend. More than a knife, that one. Yanking the world clear of Eve but it hadn't helped. It was in danger again, this time from something they knew almost nothing of, something that they couldn't even find, let alone fight.
The scream that rose inside of him was more like a howl. He couldn't deal. He couldn't keep fighting when everything he did made it all worse. Made it all meaningless.
He wanted it to end. Just stop.
He wanted to die.
The thought, like a shout into a silent room, shocked him free of the maelstrom of emotion.
Did he?
Forest Edge, Oregon
Ellie sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers curled around Dean's hand, listening to Frank.
"What we're dealing with is Sekhmet. She had power over the usual stuff plus vengeance and enchantments. The armlet in that box is hers—and it's not an offering, not a tribute, but personally hers."
"Cut to the chase, Frank." Sam looked down at his brother.
"To break the curse, we have to summon her, give her back the armlet, ask her for a favour in return. She's the only one who can break a spell made in her name."
"Fine," Ellie snapped, her voice like the crap of a whip. "What do we need to summon her?"
"Uh, this is…" Frank glanced at Sam. "Um…where it gets tricky."
"Frank," Ellie said softly. The two men looked at her face, seeing the icy rage that was just below the surface now.
"Sorry. We have most of what we need. The usual things. What we don't have…I don't know if we can get them." He looked down at the list in his hands. "We need a paragon of the earth. The blood of a soul that straddles Earth and the Underworld—"
Ellie frowned. "How much blood?"
Frank looked at the spell. "Doesn't say."
She nodded. "What else?"
Sam looked down at her face, the crease that appeared when she was concentrating there now, deep between her brows, her gaze unfocussed as she listened intently to Frank. He could feel a change in the air of the room, like a buildup of static almost, the way it felt before an approaching storm. He'd felt it twice before, near her, when she was completely focussed on what she would have to do, admitting to no possibility of defeat.
"And, uh…the heart of a dead star."
Ellie snorted. "Come on, Frank, I know you've got that one in the trailer."
He frowned at her. "I've got some meteorite pieces, Ellie—not the heart of a dead star!"
"Ancient Egypt, Frank. A falling star is a dead star." She closed her eyes. "Paragon of the earth…that will be a diamond, I think."
Frank glanced at Sam. "Yeah, we figured that out, but even with your resources, I don't see how we can get a paragon diamond in time."
"Sam, can you please call Cas," Ellie said, opening her eyes. She looked back to Frank. "Which one is the easiest to get to?"
He watched Sam leave the room, shaking his head. "The Kremlin has the Orlov. And there are the Cullinan Diamonds, in the Tower of London. Ah…the Shah had a couple in the Iranian Crown jewels, but I don't know where they'd be now." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking. "There's the Kohinoor, that's in London somewhere too, probably the Tower. And the Hope—"
She shook her head. "The Hope isn't a paragon. The Cullinan, they're in the Queen's crown, aren't they?"
"Yeah, I think so. Uh, the Lesser Star is in the Crown. The Greater Star is in the King's Sceptre."
"We don't need the biggest." She looked around past Frank as Sam came back into the room, Castiel following him. The angel's vessel looked tired and unkempt.
"What's wrong with him?" Castiel looked down at Dean, then back to Ellie.
"He touched a cursed object. We need a few things to get him back." She stood up. "The Lesser Star of Africa is a cushion-cut clear diamond, set into band of the Crown of the Queen of England, held in the Tower of London."
The angel nodded abruptly. "Yes, I know of it."
"We need that stone for the spell." She looked up at him. "Can you get it?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Yes."
"Good. We also need to find Jesse Turner, any ideas?"
He frowned. "He's been hidden from us for years now. I thought he turned up when Dean needed him?"
"He might not know he needs him." Ellie rubbed her eyes. "Do you know of any summoning spells for half-breeds, Cas?"
He shook his head. "Their human heritage protects them against the demon summons, you know that."
She nodded, and Castiel disappeared, the flutter of wings soft in the silence of the room.
"Jesse?" Sam looked at her quizzically. Ellie shrugged.
"He is of the two planes," she said, sinking back onto the bed. "No use if we can't tell him we need him."
The doorbell rang and the three of them looked at the door. "I'll get it," Sam said and walked out.
"Frank, get the rest of the stuff, including your meteorites. And run a search on the library to see if anything comes up in relation to calling or summoning half-breeds?"
The hacker nodded, leaving the file on the bed and hurrying out of the room. Ellie looked down at the man lying beside her.
We're looking, Dean, we're working on it, she told him silently, her fingertips resting lightly against his cheek. We'll get you home.
Prosperity, Indiana
"We should hit the road. You ready?" Dean walked around to the driver's side of the Impala, looking over the roof at his brother. He wanted to go. He wanted to drive and not think and not feel and not stop until he got to Bobby's and dumped the monster.
Sam was looking at him expectantly, never a good a sign. "Hey, were you, um, were you listening to the Starks tonight?"
"Uh, a little, when I wasn't getting slammed into a wall or stung by bees," he said, hearing the opening but not sure where Sam was going with it.
"You notice how they, uh, you know, how they…how they opened up, got everything off their chest?" Sam looked away as he made an opening up gesture broadly over the roof of the car.
Here we go, Dean thought. He pasted a smile on his face, and nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. Kudos on selling them that crap."
"It wasn't crap, Dean. It worked," Sam said.
"Sam, I am so very, very, very, very...very, very tired…" Dean exhaled, looking at Sam from under his brows. Why was it that his little brother always wanted to fix him when he had no energy, no will to argue back?
"Dean, like it or not, the stuff you don't talk about doesn't just go away. It builds up, like whatever's eating at you right now." Sam leaned on the roof, staring at him.
"There's always something eating at me. That's who I am," Dean snapped. He was so not going there, not tonight, not ever. "Something happens, I feel responsible, all right? The Lindbergh baby—that's on me. Unemployment? My bad."
"That's not what I'm talking about," Sam's forehead wrinkled up.
"Well, then what the hell are you talking about?" And why the fuck are you talking about it to me?
He could feel his brother's concern, beating at him like a fucking stick. He couldn't do this. It was hard enough to have to keep this shit locked and bolted and chained and padlocked down in his head. He was fucking tired. Tired of the stray thoughts that escaped his best efforts. Tired of the fucking monsters that were roaming the world. Tired of being hammered by his brother when he needed rest, needed to shut down for an hour or twelve and not think, not feel, not be.
"I'm talking about whatever you're not telling me about," Sam snapped, his voice loaded with anger at not being able to get through. "Look, Dean, it's fine. You can unload. That's kind of what I'm here for."
Dean stared back across the roof of his car. The silence stretched out and Sam looked away, visibly trying to let go of his frustration. He looked back at Dean.
"I mean…we're good, right?"
"We're good," Dean agreed readily, dropping his gaze, opening the car door and sliding into the seat.
He turned on the engine, eyes closing as Sam continued to stand by the passenger door, no doubt wringing his hands and rolling his eyes. He just couldn't. He knew it was making Sam nuts, but there was just no way he could tell him about…everything. It would take too fucking long for one thing. They'd still be talking next year.
And while it might…emphasis on might…release the pressure, it wouldn't change anything. Wouldn't make what had happened better or more understandable or different. But more to the point, whatever he let out today would come back as a weapon to wound him, tomorrow or a year from now or ten years…but sometime. Sam couldn't help it.
He heard the squeak of the door and opened his eyes, settling his hands on the shift and the wheel, waiting for the clunk of it closing. He could feel Sam's gaze on him, like a hot brand on the side of his head.
He'd wanted to die, in that room with Jo. That had scared him more than anything else he'd been through. He knew despair, knew it like an old, unwelcomed friend, who visited in the night and clung to him, taking the hope out of everything. This had been worse. This had been an avalanche of despair, a fucking iceberg of despair, ramming into him and sinking him. He hadn't even heard half of what Jo had said, in the moments before she'd gone to the stove and turned on the gas.
None of it was surprising. It had all been there, for a long time now. He'd thought he'd had a lot of it buried deep, locked down, but he'd been wrong. Like putrescent floaters, his memories, his thoughts and feelings were rising, surrounding him, making him choke and gag on their noxious fumes, drowning him.
Sam was right, it built up, and up, and up, and there was nothing he could do about it, because he could not talk about it. Not with his brother. Not with Bobby. He had no one.
What he'd done to the kitsune was one gag, but there were others. A lot of others. The trust that he'd had in his brother was a ragged remnant of what it once been, worn down and torn apart and rent through with everything that had happened, with all the secrets that were still between them, all the conversations they'd never had, all the truths that they'd never shared. Even the thought of Sam and Bobby deliberately leaving him in Cicero for almost a year had broken some part inside of him that he couldn't find all the pieces for. He didn't understand how they could've not known those things about him, not known that year had been torture out of Hell for him, that he would've given anything to have known that Sam was alright, that the dreams that had ripped him apart for that endless time had been wrong, delusions, not real.
It occurred to him, not for the first time, they didn't know him. Not really. Not who he was when he was just Dean. Maybe that was his fault, hiding himself too well.
Or, maybe no one had cared enough to push him into showing himself. He didn't know. He trusted Sam and Bobby with his life. Just not…with himself. He hadn't trusted Lisa with himself either; afraid of what she might think. Afraid of what she might do.
Once, he might've been able to trust Cas enough to talk to about some of this. Not any more. Not that he had the option anymore.
He stared at the road, a black ribbon twisting away from them, leading them deeper into the dark. Trust was a precious commodity, and a rare one. He knew he didn't trust anymore. Couldn't anymore. Without it, he was going to have to deal with his demons on his own. His armour was weak, thinned out from too much use, too much need.
Forest Edge, Oregon
Ellie paced up and down the bedroom, the phone pressed tightly to her ear. In her mind, seconds ticked away steadily, and she couldn't shake the image of a death-watch, hearing the ticking getting louder the more she tried to force it away.
"Francis? It's Ellie," she said, the monk's voice on the other end of the line. She spun around and sat down in the armchair by the window. "I need some information and I need it really, really fast." She looked at Dean, unmoved on the bed. "Is there anything in the manuscripts in the vaults about summoning or calling a half-breed?"
"Demon/human, not nephilim," she clarified, trying to make out his words over the hiss and crackle of the phone. "Yeah, yes, I'll wait."
"Anything?" Sam looked at her.
"Not sure," she answered, looking up at him. "He thinks there's something…he's gone to look."
"Lucky he's got that place sorted out."
She nodded, fingers tapping out a staccato rhythm on the arm of the chair as she waited.
"We've got everything else, just waiting on Cas to get back," Sam continued, pulling the small table up next to the bed, and setting out a bowl and the herbs, powders and candles the ritual required. "Can I draw the circle on the floor by the door?"
Ellie looked at him distractedly and nodded again, glancing at her watch. Ten and a half hours. Cas should've been back by now.
"Yeah—yes, I'm here." She straightened in the chair. "What is it? Can you fax it? Now?"
She got up and strode past Sam, glancing at him as she passed. "He's got something; I'm going to the fax."
Sam nodded, his eyes fixed on the circle he was making on the floor in lamb's blood. He'd had to drive down to the slaughterhouse in Portland and break in to get the blood, but there was enough to do the job properly.
Ellie took the stairs in twos and threes, her heart hammering. If she could get Jesse, then maybe they had a chance. She didn't want to think of the reactions of a six thousand year old goddess to being summoned by a bunch of hunters.
In the basement, a long beep sounded from the fax machine as the paper fed through. She grabbed the edge of it, tilting it up, seeing the ancient symbols covering the top edge of the sheet. Persian? The sheet cleared the rollers and came away at her tug. Yep, she thought as she scanned through it. Nothing was needed but the incantation and a circle, which made a nice change.
Her phone rang, and she tucked the sheet under her arm as she answered it, heading for the stairs.
"Yeah?"
"Ah, Ellie?"
"Cas?" She stopped in the middle of the room. "Where are you?"
"Ah, I'm in the Tower of London. In an Enochian trap."
"What?"
"Yes. There's a man here who wants to speak to you."
"'Lo?" The voice was older, crisp and military-sounding. "With whom am I speaking?"
"Eleanor Winchester," Ellie said slowly.
"Eleanor … Ellie?" The surprise was almost comical. Ellie blinked.
"Rory?"
"Bloody hell. Is this angel yours?"
Ellie repressed a snort of laughter. "In a manner of speaking, what the hell are you doing there, Rory?"
"Queen's consult on all matters paranormal."
"You're kidding."
"Not kidding. Quite serious." She heard a rustle at the end of the line. "One of my duties is to prevent the jewels being stolen by nefarious and unnatural means."
Ellie grimaced. "I only need one, Rory. It's a matter of life and death."
"Ellie … how would it look if I let the bloody thing get nicked on my watch?"
"How often are the stones authenticated?"
"Only when there's a coronation," Rory admitted warily.
Ellie bit her lip. "Let me speak to Castiel."
"Hello?"
"Cas, there's a Brazilian white topaz, cushion-cut and the same size and weight as the Lesser Star, in the Diamond Museum in Amsterdam. I need you to get it."
"Ellie, I'm in a trap. I can't move."
"Put Rory back on," she said.
"I can't let the angel out, Ellie."
"You certainly can't explain an angel to anyone in the Home Office who'll believe you, Rory. If he can get a replacement, you can swap it out and no one will be the wiser until it's Charlie's turn," she pressed him urgently. "Rory, please."
There was a scraping noise over the line and Ellie held her breath, listening.
"All right, off you go then," Rory said indistinctly, possibly to the angel. His voice became clearer. "You got it. But Ellie, this is a favour the like of which you've never seen…I fully expect to get your child in return if I ask for it, are we quite clear?"
Relief flooded her. "Yes, we're clear."
"That was bloody quick!"
She heard him set the phone down, indecipherable noises and mutterings coming through in clumps, interspersed with silences.
"Done. He's got it and he's gone."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me," Rory said, his voice sour. "Remember it when I need something from you, girl."
She laughed a little. "I will."
The sound of fluttering wings filled the basement and Ellie turned as she closed her phone, Castiel behind her.
"Who was that man?" He walked to her, dropping a diamond the size of a poker chip into her hand. Ellie looked at it and turned for the stairs, glancing back over her shoulder at him.
"Rory Mahoney. He used to be a hunter, guess he's gone respectable."
"He knows an inordinate amount about angels," Cas grumbled as he followed her up the stairs.
"Ah, yes." She glanced back at him. "He used to work with Patrick. For the Vatican."
Saylorville Lake, Polk City, Iowa
Dean opened the trunk of the hatchback. He unzipped the bag, looking down at the two Leviathan heads wrapped in plastic, and exhaling softly. Taking them had been sweetly satisfying, blindingly black and white action in the grey sludge that had become his life.
"Are you sure you want to dump these things? I'm thinking they might actually come in handy down the road. What do you think?" He looked over the car at Sam.
Sam's mouth compressed as he stared at the lake.
"Hey. What? What is it? Talk." Dean's eyes narrowed slightly as he took in Sam's expression.
"Nothing."
"Well, that's convincing. Did monster-us give you the jeebs, huh? 'Cause I gotta be honest, I ain't looking in the mirror for-for a while myself." He tried to lighten the moment, his smile fading away as Sam's expression remained unchanged.
Sam turned, straightening as he looked at his brother, jaw working, his eyes filled with anger.
"Okay. You really want to know what's wrong?"
"Yeah." He didn't. Not really. Sam was pissed. He forced a smile. "Yeah, you know my motto: here to help."
Sam's gaze cut away, his jaw muscle flexing at the point of his jaw again.
"'Here to help.' Kind of like you helped Amy?"
Crap. It didn't matter how he'd found out, he'd known he would, sometime. "Listen, Sam—"
"Don't! Don't lie to me again. Don't even talk to me," Sam said, his face twisting into a grimace, taut with distaste.
"Yeah, I can't."
Sam opened the rear door of the car, grabbing his backpack and gear bag. "You know what, Dean?" The words fell out between his gritted teeth and he started to walk away. "I can't."
Dean came around the back of the car, following Sam up the dock. "You can't what?"
"I can't talk to you right now, Dean!" Sam swung around, his expression frozen, arms swinging out in frustration. "I can't even be around you right now!"
"Okay, so…" Dean stopped by the hood of the car, wondering what options that left.
"I think you should just go on without me," Sam said.
Dean let his gaze drop, nodding slightly as understanding dawned. Go on without me. You mean go on alone, right Sam? By yourself. Alone. With nobody.
He couldn't blame him; he'd brought it on, another craptastic decision, another secret between them. It didn't make any difference. Sooner or later he was going to be dying alone anyway. He glanced back at Sam, his brother's chest heaving, tension in his face and shoulders.
"Go."
"All right." Dean took a step backwards, and it felt like giving in, giving up. "Sorry, Sam."
Walking back to the trunk, he shut down his thoughts as much as possible. He pulled the heads from the trunk's well and walked to the rail, throwing them into the lake.
All that good satisfaction he'd felt from killing them, from getting rid of at least two of the monsters, vanished in the slow rise of pain.
He got into the car, and started the engine, his eyes fixed on his brother, walking slowly up the pier. Sam hadn't looked back, hadn't even slid a sideways look in his direction. He pulled in a deep breath and twisted in the seat, watching the road through the rear window as he reversed the hatchback off the dock and back onto the road. He kept his eyes firmly forward, not allowing himself even the slightest twitch to see if Sam was looking after him.
He had no idea where he was going. East was the direction the first road he came to was heading in, and he followed it, making lefts and rights and continuing east as the sun set behind him, and the car's headlights picked out the white lines.
"I think you should go on without me."
Could also be expressed as get the fuck away from me, I don't want you in my life, he thought, staring at the lines. Maybe that wasn't all bad. Maybe if he was actually alone, he wouldn't be able to let anyone else down. Wouldn't be able to get hurt either. Maybe it would be a good thing.
His mouth thinned out, twisting up slightly. Just me, myself and my thousand fucking regrets, he thought, ignoring the bitter edge to the words. And the nightmares…let's not forget the fucking nightmares, those constant snugly-wuggly companions of the endlessly long hours of the night.
He didn't notice how hard he was gripping the wheel, bones standing out white through the skin. Didn't notice his speed creeping up as his foot kept getting heavier on the accelerator. Didn't notice the signs that flashed by, marking off the miles, the towns. He'd known he'd end up alone. He'd thought that it would be because Death would take everyone, even Sam. It hadn't occurred to him before that he could end up alone because he was shutting everyone out.
Forest Edge, Oregon
"You summoned me!" Jesse stood in the circle, staring at Ellie with wide eyes.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, but I couldn't find another way to get your attention—"
"But you summoned me," he said again, turning slowly around and looking around the room, his gaze stopping on Frank, then on Sam, finally on the angel standing by the door. "For him?"
"No," Ellie said. "For Dean."
Jesse's attention returned to her. "I didn't think anyone could summon me."
"I don't think anyone else knows how to, but we really need you, Jesse." She stepped to one side, gesturing at Dean, prone on the bed. "He's been cursed, and we have a tight time limit to free him before it's too late."
Jesse's gaze focussed on the man on the bed. "What do you need?"
"Your blood." She stepped close to the circle, a small piece of parchment and narrow-bladed sharp knife held out toward him in her hands. "Just a little on the parchment will do."
He looked down at the knife and parchment. "It was one of the…Egyptian goddesses, I think, who needed this?"
"Right. Sekhmet. She controls the curse. I have to get her here, return the armlet to her, ask for her favour." She swallowed, knowing how unlikely it was that the plan would play out the way she wanted it to.
He glanced at Castiel who looked away. Dean had told her the angel had been turned into a three-inch tall action figure the last time the two had been face to face. It didn't look like it was an experience Cas wanted to repeat.
Jesse took the knife, making a small cut on the side of his thumb. He gave Ellie the knife back and took the parchment, letting the blood drip onto it, until the piece was red.
"Can I have the spell you used?" He looked at her, handing back the parchment when it was soaked.
Ellie hesitated for a second then nodded. "Sam?"
Sam walked to the circle, and handed the fax to Jesse. The boy was nineteen, almost a man, still a little too lanky, still to grow into the big frame that promised a big man.
"Thanks." He looked down at the circle. "You can free me, I won't hurt you."
Ellie handed the parchment to Frank and turned back to the circle, kneeling and scratching the blood from the timber floor until the line was broken. Castiel made a noise in his throat and stepped further away.
Jesse ignored him, looking down at Ellie. "I was going to come and see Dean sometime soon anyway. Things are happening…" He glanced at Sam. "…your kind of things. The firstborn nephilim have gathered and they're looking for the missing bloodlines, to build the circle."
Sam nodded. "We've been trying to find them ourselves. What missing bloodlines are they looking for?"
"The blood of Azazel and Amaros," Jesse said, looking past him to the bed. "The children the council sacrificed so that the circle could never be built."
Sam frowned. "What?"
Jesse looked at him and then at Ellie. "You knew that, don't you?"
Ellie moistened her lips, nodding as she looked at Sam. "I'll explain it later." She turned back to Jesse. "Is it Dean and Sam or the children?"
"Any of them will do. The gifts have started to manifest, haven't they?"
"Yes."
"Then they will come here, sooner or later, Ellie," he said. "And they will take whoever they can, whoever has the strongest power."
"Ellie, we're on a schedule," Frank remarked mildly as he added the parchment to the bowl on the table.
"Jesse, can you come back, in a couple of days, if we're…?" her voice trailed off as she looked at the bed. His gaze followed hers.
"Successful? Yes, I'll listen for him." He stepped out of the circle and vanished.
"You ready to light this rocket?" Frank looked at her, at Sam and Castiel. She nodded.
Frank lit the match and dropped it into the bowl. For a second nothing happened, then the contents caught and the flames that shot out of the bowl licked at the ceiling, a curtain of fire that shimmered in the dimly lit room.
Seattle, Washington
Dean stared out of the window into the darkness, a formless anxiety filling him as Sam drove them closer and closer to Seattle. He didn't want to be anywhere near the city and he wasn't interested in knowing why. Bobby's flask was almost empty and he sipped at it again, knowing the liquor wasn't helping, knowing it wasn't doing much of anything lately, but clinging to it like a life-ring, because it was all he had to keep the darkness that closed around the edges of his mind at bay.
You are the reason I've been waiting all these years, somebody holds the key
The delicate voice and picked guitar twisted and turned through his thoughts like a vine, wrapping him in a sense of something missing, something wrong, something strange going on.
"Sam?" He looked over at his brother, face painted in the red wash of the taillights in front of them.
"Yeah?"
"Can you think of anyone I…" He hesitated, not even sure of what he was trying to ask. It seemed beyond vague. "Uh, anyone I might have wanted to talk to?"
It wasn't the right question, and he knew it, but he couldn't think of anything else. Didn't know the right question.
Sam glanced over at him and shook his head. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know," he muttered, unscrewing the flask and sipping a little more from it.
But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
The bar's lighting was a soft, diffused bluey-white and it should have made the patrons look like three-day-old corpses, Dean thought, swallowing another mouthful of the very good whiskey and looking across the table at the woman sitting opposite him. It said something for the designers that it didn't. He could see her eyes clearly enough, the pupils expanded, the curve of her smile warm and welcoming, the way she sat, her eyes and body turned toward him, obvious tells that stirred an answering need in himself.
"Well, look at you," she said softly, smiling.
"Yeah, look at me."
He looked down at the table, feeling one side of his mouth lifting, the half-smile not even close to his eyes or any part of the rest of him. He lifted his gaze and knew what she offered, knew he wanted it more than he'd wanted anything in the last six months, a chance to touch someone, to lose himself in someone, and he didn't care if it didn't mean anything, didn't care that she didn't know him or care about him, didn't care that he didn't want to know her either. He wanted to feel something that was alive and unconnected to his life.
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home.
"You want to move this conversation elsewhere?" Her voice dropped, the warm tones seductive and he felt desire uncoil in his body as he stared into her eyes.
The apartment was old but the décor and the furnishing were modern. He looked at her sitting at the foot of the bed, the black underwear stark against her smooth pale skin and felt a shiver run down his spine, when she moved toward him and the long fall of red-gold hair slipped down over her shoulder. His pulse accelerated, eyes widening slightly. For a second, a fraction of a second, he saw something…someone…overlying her, and a rending pain tore through him.
Then it was gone, and she settled herself over his hips, stretching out her hands to him. He watched her, waiting for that…vision?…to repeat, he'd felt so close to knowing who it was, but it didn't.
And I ain't done nothing wrong, but I can't find my way home.
Forest Edge, Oregon
The figure that stood in the blood circle was tall, taller than Sam by at least a head. She was very lean, with long arms and legs, a flat abdomen, full, heavy breasts pushing against the thin cotton of the dress she wore, the bodice held up by a wide, flat necklet of polished metal squares, linked together. Her hair was straight and long, blue-black as a raven's wing, shining in the light from the lamp on the nightstand; her skin a smooth golden olive, with a faint golden sheen to it. Her eyes were dark, heavily outlined in kohl, the liner extending out past the eye to her temple.
"I am Sekhmet, queen of war, of vengeance and magic. Who has Summoned me from my sleep?"
Ellie drew in a deep breath, picking up the box that held the armlet, drawing the goddess' attention as she bowed deeply.
"Sekhmet, goddess of war and vengeance, of magic and hunting, we have Summoned you to return what is yours."
She was acutely aware that the three men in the room had withdrawn to the walls. In Egyptian lore, the priestesses were the ones who communed with the goddesses. Sekhmet's eyes rested on the armlet appraisingly. She reached out and took it from the box, slipping it over her arm and admiring it, her gaze shifting back to Ellie after a few moments.
"You are a true servant, child. I have been without this for millennia. Where did you come across it?"
"It was sent to a man," Ellie said, her lifting as she turned to the bed, "enchanted by a spell to take his mind and lock it away, to place him in the lands of the dead where we cannot reach him."
Sekhmet's eyes narrowed as she looked at Dean. "This man? He is dear to you?"
"Yes."
"You have a favour to ask of me?" The goddess turned back to her, heavy black brows rising slightly. "A favour for the return of the armlet?"
"If you so wish to grant this servant such," Ellie said.
Sekhmet smiled, bright white teeth flashing between the full wine-coloured lips. "You are a true servant, child, polite and deferential as is fitting. I desire to grant you this favour."
She looked down at the circle she stood in. "You will bring him to me."
Ellie looked at Sam and Frank and they edged around the goddess to the bed, lifting Dean and carrying him to the edge of the circle. Sekhmet looked down at him, extending her hand. Her fingers grazed his forehead and Ellie's jaw tightened as she saw a pale silver light slip from their ends under his skin, his skull visible beneath them.
His eyelids fluttered, then his chest hitched sharply as consciousness returned. Sekhmet lifted her hand and folded her arms over her chest, watching Sam and Frank ease Dean back onto the bed.
"He is sleeping normally now. He will wake in an hour or two," the goddess said, and turned to Ellie. "What enemy does he have who would bring this punishment down upon him?"
Ellie shook her head. "I do not know."
"You would do well to find out." Sekhmet bent to look at her more closely. "In my experience of vengeance among men, true hatred rarely ceases with the first attempt."
Ellie nodded. "My experience has been the same."
"Release me, child, that I may protect those in my care and perform my duties again."
"Thank you." Ellie walked to the table. She took a large pinch of the ground up meteorite and tossed it into the smouldering contents of the spell bowl, fresh flames shooting to the ceiling and changing to violet then black. The goddess in the circle disappeared.
"Is it done?" Frank asked, looking around.
Ellie nodded, and walked to the bed, sitting beside Dean and resting her fingers against the side of his neck. His pulse had slowed a little, and his breathing was the soft, deep cycle of sleep. She lifted an eyelid, seeing the pupils contract as the light from the lamp struck it, his head turning in protest.
As much as she wanted to wake him, see his recognition straight away, she resisted the impulse. Goddesses, no matter which religion or persuasion, rarely gave bad advice when it came to matters like these. She would wait for him to wake naturally.
Dean rolled over onto his side, his eyelids rising, then widening abruptly as memory crashed into consciousness. The bedroom was his, his and Ellie's, and he sat up, looking around, seeing the familiar photographs and personal items, casually spread out over the furniture. He was home. His head snapped around as he heard a sound from the door.
Ellie walked straight to him, wrapping her arms around him, holding him tightly, his arms snaking around her and pulling her closer. He dragged in a deep breath, filling himself with her scent, his lips grazing over her skin, a shudder passing through him as the emotions he'd gone through in that wasteland in his mind finally released him.
"What happened?" He leaned back, looking into her face.
"Cursed object." Ellie sat on the bed next to him, her hand running down his arm, rising again to touch his cheek lightly, the desire to make sure it was him, that he was here, back with them, irresistible. "Someone sent it in a package. You touched it, and I found you on the kitchen floor."
He frowned. "Who sent it?"
"We don't know. Frank's taken the wrapping paper. He's looking into it." Her lips compressed as she looked at him. "Where were you?"
His memories were clear, terrifying, desolating, and he shook his head, throat working as he tried to push them aside long enough to answer her. "In the, uh, past, I think."
A past without her, without anyone. A shiver slid up his spine and he looked up. "Alternative past. Where I never met you. Never knew you."
She moved closer to him, and he turned his head, trying to not let it out, trying to keep it from exploding all over her. He would tell her about it—all of it—soon, but it was too fresh, too shocking right now, that struggle of keeping everything in, of not letting anything out at all. He'd been alone. Sam had been there, but he'd been alone, no trust, no quiet place to rest, no comfort, no hope. Alone.
Her arms wrapped around him again, and he closed his eyes, grateful for her immediate understanding, grateful he didn't have to face that life, more grateful it had been a curse, a dream, hadn't wiped out this life. He'd skated too close to that life when he'd lived it the first time, pulled back from his despair and the insidious longing for it to be over time after time by the woman who held him. He wondered if he'd even still be alive now, if she hadn't been there, if he'd really had no one.
Locked in the curse, it hadn't felt like it. It didn't matter. He'd have been dead in one way or another without her, dead in the ground or dead walking around. There wasn't that much difference between them. Just the pain.
He turned and leaned on her, his arms closing around her ribs again, the soft brush of her hair against his cheek. He hadn't remembered her, when he'd been trapped in there, because she'd never existed for him there, he thought...but somehow, he'd remembered something, had known something was missing.
He'd never taken it for granted, this life, this love, but as he held her it came to him he'd felt as if it would always be there for him, always be his…and that scared him, the recognition it wasn't necessarily the case.
It could be taken from him as easily as everything else, deliberately or accidentally. He couldn't protect them from everything.
