Chapter 15 No Mercy
Nevada
Ellie glanced back over her shoulder. The headlights were moving, back from the rim of the ravine. Leaving, she wondered? Or pretending to leave?
Pretending to leave. She'd seen the flashlights as two had made their way down the side of the ravine, seen them look at the truck. No matter what else she thought of the firstborn, they hadn't struck her as being particularly stupid. The lack of bodies was obvious.
Which way? She was following the ravine, north-west. The highway was probably four or five miles to the east. There was another highway, a smaller one that ran up into Oregon, she remembered. The 293 was a little under forty miles to the west, running parallel to the 95, on the other side of the Trout Mountains and other smaller ranges. It was high desert country, plenty of game, but there would be coyote and cougar as well. She shifted Rosie in her arms, looking down at John. On her own, she could've been there in a couple of days. With them…it would take a week or more to cross the ranges and reach the road.
Was there a choice, she thought bitterly? The nephilim couldn't cross directly to the 293, they'd have to go the long way south or north to intercept her. And if they followed her on foot…she couldn't kill them, she knew. She didn't dare get close enough to cut out their hearts, couldn't risk John and Rosie's lives that way. But she had four mags in her backpack, along with the SIG, and she could certainly do enough damage to slow them down.
The country was hard; volcanic rock and desert and only a few permanent streams, although she could find enough water to keep them going. It would be cold. And she would need to find good shelter every night, to keep the children safe. She lifted her hand, rubbing her wrist over her forehead, feeling the dried blood crusted on her skin.
"John, hold onto me, okay?" She made her decision and turned left, climbing the steep slope.
In the darkness she felt his nod rather than saw it. She couldn't risk a light until she was sure the firstborn were not behind them, and her arm tightened around her daughter as she leaned forward, balancing awkwardly, her feet searching for the smoothest path upward.
Pueblo, Colorado
Dean pulled into the parking lot of the motel as the first rays of sunshine were just breaking over the hills to the east. He sat in the car for a moment as Sam and Carl got out, Sam going to the motel's office, Carl going to the trunk.
He hadn't felt the prickling sensation for fifty miles. Did that mean everything was okay, he wondered? He opened the door and got out, going around to the trunk and lifting out bags as Carl met Sam at the room door.
Sam's phone rang as he opened the door and he answered the call as Dean and Carl walked inside.
"Yeah, see you then," he said, closing the door. "Marcus's just passed through Colorado Springs. They'll be here in an hour."
Dean nodded, putting the bag down and pulling out his cell. He walked back outside to the parking and dialled the house first. The phone rang and rang, and his nerves twitched. When the answering machine cut in, he left a message, then tried Ellie's cell. Again, it went straight to the out of range message. He left a message on her voicemail, and leaned back against the motel wall, eyes closed, trying to work out what that meant. If she'd decided to stop and sleep, she'd have called. If she'd had any trouble, she'd have called. Any normal trouble, he amended, feeling his heart skip a beat.
Beside him the door opened, and Sam looked out. Dean opened his eyes and turned to look at his brother, straightening instantly when he saw Sam's expression.
"It's on the news," Sam said and stood back to let Dean walk past.
On the screen, the footage showing was obviously shot from a helicopter, circling the ravine, hovering, the cameraman managing to zoom in a little before the changeable wind forced the pilot into moving again.
The white pickup was clear at the foot of the deep crevice however, blackened on one side from the fire, crumpled and destroyed like a toy thrown by a petulant child. He stared at the television as the film changed to a reporter talking to a cop, the crime scene tape flapping furiously behind them, a number of men kneeling on the ground at the edge of the frame looking at something.
"Have any bodies been recovered, detective?" The reporter was young, dark-haired and pretty, her bobbed hair flying wildly around her face.
"Not at this time," the detective answered, his tone surly as he glanced away from the reporter to the men behind him. "We have what looks like might have been some sort of pursuit from the highway to this point, and from the condition of the truck there may have been contact between two vehicles. We do not know anything further."
The news report cut back to the anchor and Dean stood and watched the man at the desk open and close his mouth, emitting meaningless sounds.
Carl leaned forward and turned the television off, his gaze cutting from Dean to Sam. Sam kept his eyes on his brother.
"I'll come with," he said, taking a step closer.
Dean blinked and turned his head slowly to look at Sam. He shook his head.
"No. Get rid of Asase Ya. That's your priority," he said, picking up one of the black canvas duffles from the floor. He unzipped it, checking the contents, then closed it back up, fingers tightening around the straps.
"The cops seem to have some idea what went down, I'll start with them." He turned around. "She'll be trying to get north, get home…" his voice trailed away for a moment, then his eyes refocussed on his brother.
"Was it the firstborn?" Carl asked hesitantly.
"I don't know," Dean said shortly. "You got everything you need?"
"Yeah, we're good."
"I gotta go."
Sam nodded as Dean turned abruptly for the door, wrenching it open and disappearing through it.
Carl stared at the open doorway. "Is he going to be okay?"
"If he finds them, and they're okay, he'll be okay," Sam said. He didn't need to spell out the other side of the equation.
Nevada
The small hollow on one side of the washout cut the cold desert wind and Ellie had cut a dozen clumps of sagebrush to add height and thickness to the crumbling clay walls, the broken outlines of the bushes hiding the hollow from sight, the strong scent covering their own. She lay in a curve, Rosie and John tucked against her for warmth, her arms enclosing both of them and the thin cotton blanket from her backpack covering them all against the chill of the night. She couldn't sleep, her eyes moving ceaselessly over the terrain surrounding them, but through the couple of hours of remaining darkness only a jackrabbit had passed close by them.
Rosie had regained consciousness when they'd reached the first ridge top, stirring in her arms. She was reasonably sure that there was no concussion. Rosie had remembered her name and their address and her birthday and John's, her eyes, nose and ears had been clean and the lump at the side of her head had gone down a little in the intervening time. It would make the next day or so more difficult.
Ellie had already considered travelling primarily at night, and sleeping through the day. Over the bare, open ground they would be visible from long distances in the daylight hours and it was essential they remained hidden for at least a couple of days, travelling over rock and gravel that would leave no telltale traces of their passing. Once they reached the mountains, they could be more cavalier, move faster, the cover would be better. But for the next day, there was no choice. They'd have to travel in the day, to give John and Rosie enough time to get used to what they were doing. Tomorrow night the moon would begin to wax again. She hoped it would help.
Rage burned inside of her brightly. Rage at the attack on her children. Rage at the arrogance of the firstborn. Rage at the untenability of her position. No matter which way she went, she was taking them into danger and the knowledge ate at her like acid. The emotions were locked down, as deeply as she could manage, too destructive and irrational to be allowed out while the priority was survival and getting home. She had already promised herself retribution once John and Rosie were safe.
Dean would know something was wrong as soon as he tried to call and got no answers. She caught her lower lip in her teeth as she considered his possible options. There weren't many. Given a decently detailed map of the area, she thought he'd probably figure out which way she was heading and why, but he was in Colorado and it would take him time to get here, time to figure it out. She shut away her knowledge of what he would feel. It couldn't and wouldn't help.
Her eyes opened a little more widely as she saw the first lightening in the sky to the east, the darkness paling incrementally, revealing the shapes and details of the ground surrounding them, of the bushes drawn around them.
There was a click of rock on rock, a little further up the washout, and Ellie froze in position, cold stiff fingers feeling for the grip of the SIG, slipping it free of her jacket under the blanket.
"She could have gone in any direction, Maluch," a woman's voice said. Ten or fifteen feet away, Ellie thought, no further. In the open, the voice would've lost its distinctive sound at a greater distance.
"She knows we'll watch the highway to the east. She will try and throw us off her trail first, then head for another road," Maluch said with certainty, his voice coming and going, as if he was looking around.
"There are no other roads, not for miles," the woman's voice snapped. "And we are spread too thin to find her in this maze of mountains as it is."
"Reuma, she is alone, with her two small children. How far do you think she can get?"
"Winchester will know of it by now. Those news teams have spread the crash all over the media. He'll be on his way."
"He is not our concern," Maluch said. "I will deal with him when we have the nine."
"He's a spoiler and you know it. Everything he and his brother have been involved in has broken the chains."
"Then it would be best if we find this woman and his children and leave him with nothing, wouldn't it?" The nephilim's voice held a whiplash of anger.
"Alright." Reuma's voice was resigned. "Which way?"
"North. She'll keep trying to head north," Maluch said, his words almost drowned by a clatter of gravel spraying over the rock as he turned.
Ellie listened to them moving away from the washout, heading toward the ridgeline, she thought. It was a help to know which way they would go, staying on the eastern side of the mountains, thinking she wouldn't stray too far from the highway.
She looked down to see John and Rosie watching her, their eyes open wide.
"We'll stay here, silent, until they've gone a bit further away," she said in a low whisper.
They nodded and both curled closer to her.
US-50 W, Colorado
The car's shadow grew shorter in front of him as Dean drove west, passing Grand Junction just before midday. The radio was tuned to the local broadcasts, with nothing new to report. He listened to the mix of music, talk shows, ranching and weather information, his imagination on lockdown, and his thoughts churned as he tried to figure out how to find them. If it was the firstborn—and there was no one else it could be—he couldn't barrel in there and lead them to her.
"Cas, Castiel, I need your help," he muttered as he drove, keeping his eyes on the road, not daring to look at the passenger seat beside him. "Cas, please, I'm begging—"
The flutter of wings was loud and he shot a sideways look at the angel.
"What's wrong?" Cas asked.
"Ellie. She was driving home with John and Rosie, and someone ran her off the road," Dean said, aware that his voice was harsh and low, with the effort of containing his fears. "I need you to find her, find them."
Castiel was silent for a long moment and Dean finally turned his head to look at him.
"What?"
"I can't do that," Cas admitted, his expression contrite.
"Why not?!"
"Michael has decreed that no angel is to be involved with humans again."
"So?" Dean asked, scowling. "That's never stopped you before."
"It's different now." Cas stared through the windshield. "I'm watched now, all the time."
"Then what the hell are you doing here now?"
"You asked—"
The note of apology in the angel's voice suggested Cas was hiding something.
Again.
Dean made an effort to loosen his stranglehold on the wheel. "What's going on?"
"Michael told me I could not protect you or your family any longer," Cas said. "He said the orders had come from God."
"What? Why would—? Never mind," he cut himself off impatiently. Arguing had never gotten him anywhere with the angel. "Cas, they're out there being hunted by those half-breeds—"
Castiel looked at him. "She's nearing the foothills of the Trout Mountain range, near the border between Oregon and Nevada, Dean. That's all I can do for you."
"Don't you fucking bug out now," Dean snarled, head snapping around to the angel. "I need more than that."
"I cannot." Cas turned his head. "I can't go against the word of God, Dean."
The finality in his voice stopped Dean. His hands curled around the wheel as anger rose. He'd asked for help only a couple of times in all the years of knowing the angel; not once for himself, only to save the people he loved. He'd earned at least one fucking favour. But with angels it seemed like it was a one-way street. Michael had been quick to forget his gratitude.
"Don't you ever—ever—come to me for help again, Cas," he said coldly. "We're done, you understand?"
Castiel nodded unhappily. "I understand."
The sound of wings was subdued when he disappeared, and Dean realised he was throttling the wheel again. Goddamn angels were never around when you really needed them.
He put his anger aside. It wasn't going to help Ellie. The Trout Mountains ran up from northern Nevada into eastern Oregon. Wracking his memories for the routes he'd travelled around the area over the years, while Highway 95 was the way they came and went mostly, there was another highway, further to the west. Would she go for that one? The nephilim would be watching the 95. It was the quickest way back.
Chewing on his lip, he tried to think of anyone else who could help. After a few minutes, his palm slammed against the wheel and he dug in his pocket for his cell.
Trout Mountains range, northern Nevada
They walked slowly but steadily along the dry stream bed, staying off the ridges, heading due west as much as possible. By midday, they'd crossed a permanent stream and could see the rising folds and woods of the mountains ahead.
Ellie watched Rosie and John, walking stoically beside her. She'd had a few fruit and nut bars in her pack, the usual snacks for car journeys, and had given them those earlier. She would have to find something more substantial before nightfall. As they skirted an open meadow, remaining in the dappled shadows of the thin treeline, she looked at the trees and shrubs, noting the species. When they came across a small copse of alder, she stopped, pulling her knife from her pack. She cut several thin branches from the coppicing saplings, bundling them together, and retrieved a longer, thicker branch from an old dead tree.
The next stream they came to was narrow but deep, with small trees overhanging it. In the shadowed areas under the banks she saw the movement of the fish, and they stopped. For fishing, dawn or dusk were the best times, but without hooks or line, she was relying on the midday resting period for the fish who were lurking out of the direct sunshine on the water. She stripped off her boots and socks, rolling her jeans above her knees and slipped into the water, moving incrementally over the stone bed. From the bank, John and Rosie watched in silence as Ellie bent, her hands disappearing under the water and into the shadows. For a long moment she seemed to just stand there, unmoving, then she straightened and a big fish flew out of the water and landed on the bank near the children, flapping and twisting on the thin grass. A few minutes later another fish was tickled into complacency and thrown out onto the bank.
The tiny fire was smokeless, the only sign of its heat a flicker in the air above the colourless flames, the dry wood consumed entirely. In a nest of soft grass beneath a spreading serviceberry, John and Rosie were curled up, sleeping after their meal of roasted fish. The bony skeletons of the trout blackened in the ashes.
Ellie had stripped and smoothed the long alder branch, whittling tapered ends, with narrow notches, and a thick centre grip from the flexible stick. It wasn't as good as yew would've been but that tree needed a lot more water than the high desert could provide. It would do for the few days she would need it. She'd soaked it in water and bent it slowly, and it was drying out into the new shape near the fire as she worked on the arrows.
The straight branches had been stripped and smoothed, one end shaved into sharp points, the tips hardened in the fire, smoothed and hardened again. She had no feathers or glue to make the fletchings but they weren't essential. She would be hunting small game—bird and rabbit mostly—and at the closest distance she could get to them. Unlike her gun, the arrows were silent, and silence was essential. Gunfire, even distantly heard, would bring the firstborn down on them.
By moonrise tonight, she thought, they would have reached the top of the first ridge. From there she would have a better idea of the terrain they needed to cross and if she was very lucky, the nephilim would either be using their flashlights to search or would light a fire to camp and, in the darkness, she would be able to see them. Of course, they could stick to the valleys and gullies, but even then any source of light tended to spread, showing a loom or glow.
She finished the notches in the arrow ends and set them aside, pulling her bulky leather pack closer and clearing the ground to get everything in it out. It held the small medical kit from the truck and she opened that first, smiling as she saw the two rolls of sterilised suture thread. She set aside, returning the other to the kit. It would make the strongest string available for her bow. There were a couple more granola bars, and a bottle of water, refilled now from the stream. Her knife, an oilstone, the SIG and four spare loaded magazines for it. Two guitar strings, bought for Tamsin two days ago and forgotten. She looked at them thoughtfully and set them aside as well. Sunglasses. Sunscreen. A bottle of over-the-counter painkillers. Wallet. Keys. Two hex bags and a supermarket canister of salt. A thin plastic rain poncho, still in its wrapping. A compact umbrella. Half a dozen ziplock sandwich bags tucked into a larger ziplock bag. Two large square silk scarves. Her lighter and a box of weatherproof matches, almost full. A small bottle of lighter fluid. A small digital camera. Her cell phone, showing no signal at all, she noted as she looked at it. The battery was at forty percent. Her flashlight.
Dean gave her a hard time for the number and variety of things she carried around in the pack but it was better to have things when you needed them than not, she thought. She had no doubt he'd agree with that, when she saw him next.
She picked up the umbrella and opened it, looking at the fine metal spokes that made up the frame. They were light and straight. She thought they might come in handy for something or other.
Putting everything back in the bag, she considered the next few days carefully. If they could keep out of sight and keep moving west, and if the firstborn kept going north, the gap between them would have widened enough that she could relax on that point and just worry about the hiking and the more natural dangers they would face, the difficulties of finding food and water and shelter. From what she'd seen already, it was going to be hard work crossing the mountains in any case, the slab-sided hillsides and upthrust rock formations would require a lot of going around rather than up and over. She would need to stay clear of the higher ground anyway, because the mountain lions were more likely to be lairing up there than in the valleys.
Cold would be their biggest enemy. And the weather. There wasn't much she could about either. She'd already turned on the GPS on her phone, knowing it was a risk—the nephilim could track her that way too if they thought of it—but Dean would almost certainly check that first and if he could see what she was doing, could get around to the 293 before the nephilim realised, they could be out and gone from under their noses, long before the half-angels had reached the road.
An hour later, when John and Rosie woke, Ellie made a soft target with the blanket and tested the bow and the arrows. She made a few adjustments to the shafts, but was otherwise pleased with them. She'd spent a lot of time learning archery as a teenager, and had put the skills into practice on a number of jobs, using the small recurve bow and arrows made from palo santo, holy wood that had a similar effect on demons to holy water—with the added bonus it burned them from the inside as well out. She packed up the blanket and slipped the arrows into the cover from the compact umbrella, fastening the Velcro ties to the shoulder straps of her pack, then put out the fire completely, spreading the ashes and covering the charred ground with dirt.
They made good time up the side of the mountain, climbing slowly through the thick woods and increasing their progress a little more as the trees thinned out near the summit. The light along the western horizon had dwindled to a dull red line when Ellie stopped, checking a small, shallow cave under a rock overhang. The ground was dry and smelled clean, and she cut several spreading branches from the nearby shrubs to pull across the narrow entrance when they were all inside. The children ate the granola bars and snuggling together under the blanket. Ellie listened to their breathing settle quickly into the light, steady pattern of sleep and closed her eyes.
La Junta, Colorado
Sam drove down the wide main street slowly, swerving to avoid a car parked in the middle of the street. People were walking down the sidewalks, some of them weaving and stumbling, as if drunk, others standing, transfixed by a shop window or another person. He turned his head to look at Carl.
"What the hell?"
"The air," Carl said. "Tamsin said that the air would smell different—maybe it doesn't just smell different, maybe it makes you drunk or—"
He stopped, his attention caught by a couple on the hood of a pickup, on the other side of the road, both naked and oblivious to the crowd that had gathered around the truck to watch them.
"Or intoxicated on creation," Sam finished, watching the couple's writhings as he drove past them. "Call everyone; we're gonna need gas masks—or an alternative air source of some kind."
Carl nodded, opening his phone and closing the window.
They found the surplus store two blocks from the centre of town and took what they needed. The owner, half-naked, had passed out on the floor behind the counter, two women draped over him and Marcus had smothered a laugh as he'd passed by.
"He won't mind, not today," he commented, pulling the mask over his head.
"We're not going to get any help from the fire department," Sam said when they'd returned to the cars.
"No. But we're not getting any flack from anyone either," Steve remarked, looking around. "Fire department keeps flamethrowers and all sorts of gear for starting backburns or practice fires. Carl, Charlie, Oran and me'll get over there, get what we need and start making the perimeter."
"How do we figure where she is? Where the centre is?" Carl asked.
"No idea. City's got a total area of three square miles, figure we drive out another couple of miles from the last house, and start our circle. Looks to me like the effects are pretty strong here."
Sam nodded. "We'll set up at this end of Main Street."
Idan was looking around the street carefully. "Uh, I think the effects might be cumulative—the longer we're here, the more affected we get."
"Why?" Marcus looked at him, grizzled grey brows pulled together.
"Look at this street—this morning, most people were feeling okay; enough to park properly, open their stores, go about their business…look at that tree," he said, pointing at a sturdy oak fifteen feet away, its branches tangled in the overhead power lines. "I am sure the locals wouldn't have let it grow into the power lines like that, so it wasn't like that when everyone woke up this morning."
"Good point," Sam said, worry lacing his voice. He looked at Steve. "Real limited window. Get what you need and call as soon as the circle is finished."
"Gotcha," Steve said, jerking his head to the others. They got into Steve's truck and drove off. Marcus looked around at the people on the street and shook his head, looking at Sam.
"You start looking at me funny, and I'll deck ya," he said, with a grin that was slightly nervous. Sam snorted.
"Grab the blood, we'll make the spell circle nine feet wide, over there." He pointed to the centre of the street under the traffic lights.
I-80 W, Nevada
Dean pulled into Winnemucca just past ten, feeling every minute of the sixteen hours he'd been on the road. He drove straight to the police station, pulling into the parking lot and finding an empty slot. He turned off the engine, leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. His head was pounding, and he flipped open the glove box, fingers scrabbling around in it without looking and closing around the smooth bottle of Tylenol, pulling it out and drying swallowing two of the tablets.
Baraquiel should have reached the 95 by now, he thought, waiting for the painkillers to distance the headache. When he'd called the Watcher after Cas had disappeared, he hadn't even been sure that he'd agree, but the fallen angel had taken control of the conversation as soon as he'd heard what had happened, promising to get the others and head straight out. He said he'd had a way of seeing the nephilim when they weren't protected, and Dean wondered briefly if that was how the firstborn had picked up Ellie as well. The Impala had been warded against everything from the other planes by Michael five years ago. They obviously hadn't been seen on the way south or they would've been taken before getting to Rosie.
The pain receded a little, and he leaned over to the glove box, replacing the bottle and pulling out an FBI badge. Now all he had to do was convince the local P.D.
"Special Agent Wiley. I need to see the detective in charge of the crash you had off the 95 this morning," he said to the desk sergeant, allowing impatience to colour his tone.
The man stared at him, nodding with alacrity and hurrying away through the door behind the counter to the bull-pen. Dean wondered what the hell he looked like to have gotten a response like that. Not good, he decided.
The sergeant returned to the counter, followed by the cop Dean had seen on the television in the morning news report. In his fifties, the detective looked possibly worse than he felt, he thought, ketchup and mustard stains on his suit jacket speaking of hurried meals guaranteed to give a good case of heartburn later in the day, shadows under his eyes, the skin pouching and sagging, dark grey hair sticking up in all directions from being repeatedly run through by frustrated fingers.
"Help you?" The detective asked, and he showed the badge again. The man glanced at it and nodded.
"What do you want?" Grey eyes looked steadily into his across the counter, the tone of the detective's voice more tired than challenging.
"We got a tip phone in that the driver of the other car crossed into Oregon," Dean said. "This year's model Lexus GX460, metallic midnight blue, custom paint, custom interior. Shouldn't be hard to find." He raised a brow at the detective. "That sound like it matches the samples you took off the pickup?"
The detective tilted his head to one side, considering him. "It does, as a matter of fact. Anonymous tip, I suppose?"
Dean's mouth twisted up to one side. "Yeah, naturally."
"Anything else?"
"Car was last seen on the Oregon side, heading toward Burns, but might have turned around and be heading back here," Dean said, leaning on the counter. "I'm not here to make a collar, that's up to your guys. Just passing along information."
"Doesn't sound like the FBI," the detective said, his expression wry.
"New policy." Dean shrugged. "Don't piss off local law enforcement."
"Yours? Or the Bureau's?"
"Mine."
The detective laughed. "Son, you look like hell. You want some coffee?"
"Wouldn't say no," Dean rubbed a hand over his face tiredly. "One other thing, I need to get across to the 293 without going all the way around—any ideas?"
"Plenty. There're a million forest tracks over the mountains, not bad condition, you don't need a four-wheel drive for 'em." The detective gestured to the office. "Come on through, I'll get you that coffee and a map."
Letting out a relieved exhale, Dean nodded. "Just what I wanted to hear."
The roads and tracks were marked out on the map Detective Carlyle had given him and Dean sat at the small table in the motel, memorising the turns and directions as he ate a lukewarm burger and soggy fries from the all-night diner up the street. Ellie had turned on the GPS on her phone, and AccuSite had given him a location. He only needed to figure out how to get there.
He wanted to get back in the car, keeping driving, but the fatigue dragging at him, the headache that hadn't disappeared, just been packed into the cotton-wool of the painkillers, the slow mire of his thoughts all told him it would be a mistake. He was close now, and the back of his neck was prickling and itching constantly, but it hadn't flared up, hadn't gotten danger-bad and he thought Ellie was staying hidden, keeping herself and John and Rosie as safe as she could.
There was no one he could trust more to do it either. She had hunted on her own from the age of seventeen, had trained herself in every way she'd been able to think of to survive. He couldn't imagine how that had been for her, and she rarely spoke of those years, and never in much detail. He'd asked her once, and she'd claimed it was boring. He'd doubted that was an accurate description, but she'd changed the subject adroitly and the opportunity hadn't come up again. Or he'd forgotten about it.
He pushed the rest of the fries aside as exhaustion sucked at his energy. She would keep them safe. There was nothing he could do until he got out there. He had to let it go or the tension would take this chance to get some rest as well.
Stripping off and showering, letting the hot water beat down on him as he tried to force his thoughts and emotions and doubts down and away, his mind briefly threw up the memory of the drive back from Kansas, only to find that Adam had taken her and he'd had to turn around again. He leaned against the shower cubicle's wall and dragged in a deep breath. He'd been five years younger then, and had been operating purely on adrenalin for the four days of driving. He knew he couldn't take that kind of experience now.
Afterward, and despite knowing it hadn't been Adam, at least not the conscious part of his half-brother, it'd still been six months before he'd been able to look the younger man in the face without wanting to kill him.
He turned off the shower taps and stepped, grabbing a towel and drying himself as he walked back into the room. When he got to his bag at the end of the bed, he looked up and stumbled backward.
"Goddammit!"
He stared at the angel, wrapping his towel around his hips.
"Sorry," Castiel said, his gaze swinging away to the window on the other side of the room.
"How the hell you'd find me?" Dean yanked the bag onto the bed, pulling out clean clothes. "I'm still angel-proofed, aren't I?"
"Yes," the angel said, nodding. "I thought this was where you would be, based on the speed of your vehicle, and the distance travelled and your physical state of well-being—"
"Right." Dean cut him off. "What do you want?"
Castiel looked at him. "I want to help you."
Dean's brows lifted. "I thought you were forbidden to help. The Big Kahuna and all that?"
The angel frowned. "I am. It doesn't matter."
"Just like that?" Dean couldn't help the sarcastic edge. There were too many speed humps in their history for him to trust the angel the way he once had.
"We were friends," Cas said. "And I betrayed you and let you down. And it hasn't been the same since."
"Live and learn," Dean said, careful to keep his tone neutral. He was prepared to hear him out but if Cas asked for more, he didn't think he could find that trust again.
"Yes. Live and learn." The angel's deep blue eyes met Dean's. "I want to help, Dean."
Highway 95, Oregon
Chasina stared into the crystal held cupped between her hands, looking at the tiny image that lay in its heart. The sight of it left her cold and shivery.
"Get us up to the nearest high point, Lazio, I have to call Maluch."
The nephilim started the car and drove, watching the modified altimeter he headed south.
Somewhere in the Trout Mountains, Nevada
Maluch looked at the satellite phone as it beeped at him, lifting it from his belt and pressing the comm button.
"What?"
"They're here, they're com—" Chasina's voice broke up, the line crackling and Maluch glowered at the device, turning to walk higher up the steep, rocky slope.
"I can hardly hear you, Chas. Who're here?" he said irritably, pressing the handset more tightly against his ear, his free hand reaching forward to grip the rocks and pull himself up and over them.
"Our fa—" The transmission faded out and came back, so strongly for a second that her voice blasted out of the earpiece and he nearly dropped it. "—on the highway now!"
"Repeat all after 'our', Chas," he said, turning around and looking east.
"They're coming, Maluch, at least four of them, looking for us!" Chasina's voice was suddenly clear and loud. "I've seen four cars, coming south along the highway."
"Who?"
"Our fathers, you bloody imbecile. Sariel, Chazaquiel, Baraquiel and Shamsiel—those are just the ones I've seen!"
"Could they have seen you, somehow?" Maluch looked down at Reuma who was struggling up the slope beneath him.
"I don't know. We're not protected here, not like at the house."
"Alright, calm down."
"You have to get back here as soon as you can!"
"No! We have to keep looking."
"I'm not staying around here like a fucking stuffed goose while my father gets closer, Maluch," she spat, the warning in her voice explicit. "Haven't you seen the woman? What's taking so long?"
"I can see her clearly in the scrying bowl, Chas, the trouble is that one patch of woods looks very much like another and I don't know which patch of woods she's in!"
"You said you'd be able to find her and get the kids by now!" Chasina yelled into the phone. "You said it would be easy!"
"Well, I was wrong."
"No kidding!" She shook her head. "We're leaving. I am not sitting around and waiting for them to find us."
Maluch closed his eyes. "All right, go. Reuma and I will keep searching. When you get back, find a detailed map, and I mean really detailed, something that shows every goat track through here, and find another way to get us out."
He heard her take a deep breath on the other end of the line. "Yeah, right. I'll do that."
The call cut out, and he put the phone back on his belt slowly, waiting for Reuma as she climbed up beside him.
"What was that all about?"
"Our fathers are searching for us, along the highway," he said. "Chas and Lazio will return to the house. They'll be hidden there. She'll find another way to pick us up."
"And we're staying behind based on our spectacular success of finding the woman and her children?"
Maluch's gaze rested on her, and she glanced away. "I've been searching for her too randomly. I will look at dusk. Look for the shadows' directions. She's still close, I can feel her. Something in her shines out."
Trout Mountains, one mile from the border of Oregon
It was the snap of the branch behind her that made her stop. She turned her head, seeing the thick, soft tawny coat against the grey-green sagebrush and pulled John and Rosie behind her, turning to face the brush, keeping herself between the big cat and the children.
Against the rock, it was almost invisible, spots and shadows on the coat blending seamlessly with the pitted and broken stone. But against the pale leaves of the bush she could see the shape of the blunt head, and she stared into the unblinking golden-green gaze. It knew it had been made, but cat-like, it hadn't acknowledged that vexing fact yet. The long thick tail was still, except for the very tip which twitched a little.
The SIG was at the back of her belt, and her hand reached gradually around her hip for the grip, her gaze shifting between the cat's eyes, and the twitching tail, thinking she'd get one shot at bringing it down if it attacked them. If she missed and it got within reach, she was going to have a hard time treating the claw wounds with what she had on hand.
Her fingers curled around the moulded grip at the same time as the eyes behind the brush narrowed with intention, the muscles of the forequarters bunched together, and Ellie yanked the gun clear, the barrel swinging around, only her reflexes allowing her to aim and fire in the one frantic motion.
Somewhere in the Trout Mountains, Nevada
Maluch bent over the small bowl, staring into its depths. The liquid filling it was just water, but had thickened and become clouded with his concentration on it. Second by second it darkened, until the surface was a smooth, opaque black. He saw a narrow trail, leading upward through boulders and slabs of yellowish stone, spindly saplings interspersed by clumps of sagebrush lining both sides, clinging to the thin soil over the rock determinedly.
The woman stood still, her children behind her, staring fixedly at something out of sight. He concentrated on the details he could see, her shadow and those of the little boy and girl falling behind her, stretching long out over the rough ground. She faced west and the slope behind her rose steeply. She was on the western side of the ridge, the sun shining full on the mountain. He lifted his head and looked around, seeing the growing mauve and lavender and charcoal shadows deepening to indigo and midnight, the ridge on which they stood already shadowed by the higher ones further to the west.
At least one valley or more over, he thought, then his attention sharpened on the image as she drew something from behind her back, dropping into a half-crouch. The lion was mid-air when she fired, the first bullet hitting it in the chest, the second, in the throat.
The boom of the gun echoed through the mountains and he raised his head, meeting Reuma's wide eyes as she registered the sound and its meaning.
"She is close," she breathed and he nodded, tipping the water from the bowl and pushing it back into the small leather bag at his side.
"She's on a clear western slope," he added, and they both turned, heading west down the slope.
Trout Mountains, one mile from the border of Oregon
Ellie straightened from the half-crouch, her heart sledging against her ribs. Little bit too close, she thought, staring down at the glazed, dust-filled eyes of the cat. More than a little bit. She turned to Rosie and John, the children staring at the mountain lion as well.
The gunshots had sounded like cannon-fire, echoing off the hard rock walls and slabs. She could hope the nephilim hadn't heard it, but she couldn't pretend to herself they hadn't. She'd been moving steadily north as well as west through the night, and they could be on the next ridge or ten miles away and she'd never know which. Until they turned up.
"Come on, we need to hurry a bit more, find someplace to sleep tonight," she said to her children, slipping the gun back through her belt. John nodded and took Rosie's hand, and they followed her down the trail, climbing over the rocks when she started traversing the slope.
No more than an hour to full dark, Ellie thought. Rosie wouldn't be able to go longer in any case. She scanned the slope ahead, looking for any kind of place that they could hide in, defend if need be. This side was bare and open, even the sagebrush was scrawny and surviving poorly. Further down, there would be denser woods, she hoped. All the valleys and ravines held riparian stretches, trees and undergrowth along the watercourses, even the dry ones.
La Junta, Colorado
Sam coughed a little as he breathed in the dusty, dry air through the mask, turning his head from side to side to see what he was doing, the goggles limiting his field of vision severely. He could see the smoke rising around the town, clouds of black and grey and white as Steve and Carl and Charlie burned the trap into the earth. He could feel a growing pressure, as if the surrounding atmosphere was thickening, the air getting heavier in some way. Did Asase Ya know her path was being cut? Did she have consciousness? Thought?
Doesn't matter, he told himself, adding gold dust to each of the twelve bowls that lined the perimeter of the blood-drawn circle. Behind him, Marcus was stringing out thin gold wire from bowl to bowl and twisting it into place. On the other side, Idan laboriously copied out the symbols of the spell, in between the wire and the bowls, the mixture of blood and bone and dirt and herbs drying quickly on his brush. Sam could just hear his muffled curses as he dipped his brush into the mix more and more to ensure each one was correct.
He tipped the last of the powdered metal into the twelfth bowl, straightening and stretching his back, and the ground shuddered under his feet. Staggering to one side with the movement, he saw Marcus's eyes widen behind his goggles.
"What the fuck was that?" Idan asked, his voice indistinct through the full mask.
Sam looked at him and tapped his throat. They all wore Frank's military throat mikes and ear pieces. The nephilim nodded, his hand diving into his shirt and his voice clear but tinny sounding in Sam's ears a second later.
"What was that?"
"I think the goddess has just figured out what we're up to," Marcus said. He looked at Sam.
"Ah…guys, we've got trouble here," Steve's voice came through the earpiece. "We've finished the circle but we're getting company—a lot of company."
"What kind of company?" Sam asked, his heart sinking as he guessed what was happening on the outskirts of the town.
"Charlie, three o'clock," Steve suddenly shouted, and they heard the sharp crack of a rifle in the background. "So far, we've got two rugaru, a big pack of skinwalkers and what I'm pretty sure is a rawhead coming towards us."
"Perfect. She's calling in reinforcements." Marcus shook his head. "Can you get back to town?"
"Yeah, we're on the inside of the circle, there's something funny going on with the air though," Steve's voice was fading slowly.
"Get to Main Street now! Drop everything and just get in here," Sam said, swallowing at the deepening feel to the air pressure. He spun around and looked at Idan. "You finished?"
"Almost." Idan bent to paint another symbol.
"As soon as he's done the last one, we're out of the circle and reading the incantation, right?" Sam said to Marcus.
"Yep," Marcus moved to the twelfth bowl and twisted the wire around it.
Sam stepped out of the circle and grabbed the sheet of paper that Frank had given them. By the numbers, he thought. Everything by the numbers. He ran his eyes down it, checking that all the necessary preparations had been done. His vision blurred and he blinked rapidly, eyes screwing almost shut as he read through the words in his mind.
Idan finished the last symbol, and the earth shuddered again, the street splitting open a few yards from them, the roller lifting and dropping them, setting off car alarms and burglary alarms down the length of the road. The nephilim dropped to his knees, hands pressed tightly against his ears and eyes squeezed shut. Marcus saw him and stumbled over to him, aware that something liquid was trickling over his lip from his nose, realising that it was his blood when he saw the bright streams coming from Idan's nose and ears.
He bent and grabbed the young man, tucking his arm around Idan's ribs and half-carrying him out of the circle.
Sam read, blinking away the red film that was filling his eyes, yelling the words as his hearing faded out.
Highway 95, Oregon/Nevada border.
Baraquiel pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator. He'd been able to feel them, their essences strong and close as they'd driven south from Burns, now they were drawing away. Must have seen them coming, he thought, his emotions a strangely see-sawing mix of regret and fury.
It hadn't been what they'd wanted—any of them—but it had been the only way they could be sure that Lucifer couldn't use them to regain entry to Heaven. He remembered Azazel's face when he'd drawn the shortest straw, the agony in his eyes. He'd known that the angel could never bear the loss, and he'd been right. Azazel had changed profoundly when they'd buried Elessa. The decision, that short straw, had changed the course of history in so many ways that even now it was impossible to track all the repercussions that had arisen from the single act.
Amaros had disappeared, hiding from them all for a thousand years, leaving his human wife heartbroken and bereft of both husband and son. Mikel had been the oldest of the firstborn, a symbol of what they had been trying to achieve on earth, with God's blessings. He wondered at the workings of Fate that had decreed those two were the chosen ones. He was starting to understand Ellie's considered paranoia about Heaven and the lines of destiny.
How had their children found out about the sacrifice, after all these years?
The Others had known, of course, though they'd always kept it from their children. Well, the sins of the fathers were certainly being reborn in their children. He couldn't conceive what they thought would happen if they did regain Heaven; that the full-blood angels would welcome them into His House?
Michael would raise the Host and destroy them out of hand before he allowed a single one of them entry. The Eighth Choir had been united on that issue, if not on any others. The half-breed children of the fallen were abominations and should have all died in the Flood, along with their blasphemous parents. It didn't matter to them that those who had chosen to fall, had done so with their Grace intact and the full approval of their Father.
A moot point, he told himself acerbically. The firstborn were fighting now, for the chance to return to a heritage they believed was theirs, and they needed the Winchesters, either the men or their children to achieve it. They wouldn't stop, wouldn't give up, wouldn't listen to reason or yield to force of arms. Not now.
Beside him, the cell phone rang and he picked it up.
"Yes."
"They're leaving, at least two of them," Chazaquiel's voice was thrumming with some emotion as well.
"Yes, they've left the ones who searching for Ellie in the mountains," Baraquiel agreed. "Dean said he would try and trap them when they get near Winnemucca. We'll follow them, press them hard to drive them into the trap."
"Do you think that will work?"
"They picked up Ellie along this highway, Chaz, they must have their base somewhere reasonably close, they were on her before she'd even made it to Oregon. I haven't seen Dean fail yet at laying a trap."
"What do you want to do if we do catch up with them, Baraquiel?" The dark-haired Watcher's voice was very soft.
"Bind them, ensure that they cannot do further harm until we have them all," Baraquiel answered. "I would like them to see what it is they crave."
"How can you?"
He heard the incredulity in his brother's voice and smiled. "I think meeting Michael and Iophiel will probably be all they need."
There was a long moment of silence before Chazaquiel spoke again. "Michael will kill them if he's within range, you know that."
"Yes…well, I have an idea about that too."
"You have too many ideas, my brother," Chazaquiel said, a little bitterly.
"We are still alive, Chaz, and we have a purpose in our teachings again," he chided the other gently. "Was not that a good result of my ideas?"
"Shamsiel and Sariel are right behind me," Chazaquiel said after a moment, his tone returned to neutrality. "We'll catch up with you before Winnemucca."
The call cut off and Baraquiel closed the phone and replaced it on the seat. Chuma had been an engaging and adoring boy. He wondered if Chaz would feel so strongly when he saw how his son had grown to adulthood. They weren't bad or evil, he knew. Just misguided, knowing a part of the truth, not all of it. There was still time to change that.
Winnemucca, Nevada
"Can you find them, bring them here?" Dean stared at the angel.
"Yes. Ever since Raphael's attempt, Ellie glows with God's touch, what was his protection. I can see her clearly."
Dean leaned back against the nightstand. "Then do it."
The flutter of wings in the room was loud, stirring his notes on the table, and the angel had vanished.
Pulling on jeans and a plaid shirt, Dean stared at the spot where the angel had stood. He was going to have to apologise to the son of a bitch now, he knew. Not to mention feel gratitude, that once again, the angel had chosen the Winchesters over his loyalty to Heaven, with all the inevitable repercussions that choice would bring down on them.
Trout Mountains, Oregon
Castiel appeared in the clearing and the sound of gunfire filled his ears.
He looked around, seeing Maluch advancing slowly toward Ellie, the nephilim's chest riddled with bullet holes and streaming with blood. Reuma lay over a rock a few yards away, one arm thrown out, her clothing soaked red through. Ellie stood near the edge of the clearing, firing continuously at the approaching nephilim, her aim sharpening as he closed, bullet after bullet punching through the heart and exiting in a growing gory welter of flesh and blood and bone from his back. A couple of yards behind her, John and Rosie were hunched together, hands over their ears and eyes shut tight.
"Ellie!" Cas shouted over the booming of the gun. Her gaze flicked to him and returned to the nephilim.
The angel raised a hand and light began to fill the clearing, bright and clear and purest white, bleeding the colour from everything it touched, intensifying until the open space was devoid of shadows and hue and detail.
"Cas, take John and Rosie to Dean!"
Ellie finally turned away from the light, her arm thrown up to cover her face, the silence as the gunfire ceased filled with the frequency of the light, too high to hear, nevertheless ringing as it burned.
"I'm taking all of you," the angel said tersely, striding to the children and gathering them in his arms, turning back to Ellie and reaching out for her shoulder.
Maluch arms were crossed over his face when the light began to fade and he saw the angel reach out for the woman. Rage, against his father, against the man who'd thwarted him once, against the woman who'd evaded him, against the angel who had no business interfering in this, held in for too long, exploded from him and he launched himself across the space separating them, his greater weight and forward motion knocking Ellie backwards, and Castiel disappeared with John and Rosie.
La Junta, Colorado
The ground rolled and lifted and shook, and every blade of grass, flower, shrub, weed and tree in the street, in the streets beyond and out through the countryside to the charred circle enclosing the town shot up, branches and twigs and roots and leaves growing and thickening and multiplying. The air was heavy and ripe and fecund with the scents and energy of growth, every living thing in the twenty-five-mile radius doubled, and tripled and quadrupled its size or went mad with the need to procreate, itching with arousal, rutting and bellowing as blood ran from noses and mouths, ears and eyes, smearing over skin and fur and scales and feathers.
Sam was screaming but he couldn't hear himself, hunched into a ball on the ground, his fingers still holding the blood-spattered paper tightly, his will keeping him reading though he could hardly make out the words through the blood and tears that poured from his eyes, tossed and thrown as the ground heaved and bucked and rippled under him.
The trees, which had been saplings that morning, were pulling down the power lines, the cables whipping and snapping and sparking across the road, killing any they touched, electrifying the car bodies and setting fire to the awnings that shaded the store fronts. Their roots pushed deep into the plunging ground, breaking through gas lines and water lines and sewerage lines and phone lines, buried beneath the street.
Sam wiped his eyes and screamed on, his body pulsing and throbbing with an ache that had long since passed from desire to agony, the only thought left in his mind that he had to finish, had to finish reading, had to finish what he'd started before he died.
One mile outside of Winnemucca, Nevada
The road was blocked in three zones. The outer most, at the first mile marker, had three lines of stingers laid across the highway one car-length apart. Five hundred yards from that were the cars, parked across the highway nose to tail. Behind them, officers with automatic weapons.
Bill Carlyle looked over them again and was reasonably satisfied. He still didn't quite buy the Fibby's story, but he'd had his confirmation that a car matching the description the agent had given him had rocketed through McDermitt two hours ago, and he was looking forward to locking up the driver and finding out what the hell had happened to the people in the pickup. The roads around the region were dangerous enough without some psycho asshole deliberately pushing folk off them.
He saw the headlights round the bend at marker six, and checked the men were settled in, weapons racked and cocked, barrels lowered and aimed. Behind the first set of lights, he could see four more cars, all racing toward them at well over the posted limit.
The Lexus hit the first line of stingers and blew all four tyres out immediately. The shriek of the metal rims on the tar and flapping rubber were cacophonous as it hit the second and third lines, swerving violently from side to side as the driver lost any semblance of control.
The bank of spotlights on the semi trailer parker behind the police cars blinked into action, and filled the road with brilliant, blinding light, and through the binoculars he held, Carlyle could see two faces, mouths agape in surprise or panic, a man driving, a woman in the passenger seat. The four-wheel drive lurched to one side of the highway and hit the gravel shoulder, starting to spin, the driver attempting to pull it out too tightly. Carlyle watched the car shudder and rise on one side, flipping over violently as the centrifugal force twisted it.
"Weapons ready. Do not fire until an order is given. Repeat, do not fire until I give the order," he barked out to the men, and nodded at the team who waited to one side of the blockade. They jogged out toward the car, weapons raised.
Carlyle looked at the highway and saw the four cars that had been pursuing the Lexus had vanished. There were a few turnoffs along the highway beyond marker five, and he realised that his attention had been on the Lexus, not the other cars. He didn't think anyone had noticed them turning.
Winnemucca, Nevada
Dean heard the blowouts and the screaming shriek of metal over the tarmac and was just turning to the window when Castiel returned, setting John and Rosie down on the floor. He looked the angel, crouching automatically as his children ran to him, his arms going around them and holding them close.
"Where's Ellie?"
Castiel shook his head and disappeared.
"Mommy was shooting, at the man, but he kept on coming," John said against his chest. "Cas nearly touched her then the man jumped at her and knocked her down."
Rosie sobbed in his arms, the sound muffled against his coat. John was rigid with shock, standing stiffly beside him. Dean picked them up, walking to the edge of the bed and sitting down, the two of them curling close against him as the fears and uncertainties and unknown tensions of the past few days washed through them.
"It's okay," he said, keeping his voice low, his questions battened down. "It'll be okay."
Sand Pass Road, Nevada
Baraquiel drove steadily along the road, headlights off, following the turns and bends easily in spite of the lack of light. The trap had succeeded. He and the others would visit them in the morning, and bind them properly. It would drive the rest out into the open, he thought, they couldn't afford to lose too many, after all.
Behind him, his brothers drove easily in the darkness, their night vision enhanced by what they were. Or had been, once.
La Junta, Colorado
Something had changed, Sam thought incoherently, but he didn't know what. After a few minutes, he realised that the ground was no longer moving. He lifted his hand and tugged weakly at the rubber mask that covered his head, sucking in a deep, copper-tinged breath as he finally pulled it off. The air was no longer thick. Or wine-rich.
His body no longer ached. Sitting up slowly, he wiped his hands across his face, looking at the drying, sticky blood that coated them. It had all been real, he thought. All been entirely too real. He looked at the cables lashing and twisting across the street, the bodies, blackened and still, littering the broad street.
A moan nearby dragged his attention over to Idan and Marcus, and he rolled to his knees and got up, walking unsteadily to them. Both were covered in blood, but were alive, eyes open, pulses visible against the skin of their necks, their breath rasping through the mask filters. He knelt beside Marcus, easing the man up and pulling the mask off. The older man immediately sucked in a deep lungful of air and let it out again, nodding his thanks to Sam.
Together they helped Idan to his feet, taking off the mask and supporting him while he breathed deeply, in and out.
"Need to get the power turned off," Marcus said, looking bleakly along the street. Sam nodded. All three turned at the chug of an engine behind them, turning around to see Steve's truck driving slowly toward them. Steve stopped on the other side of a twitching power cable, and leaned out the window.
"Know where the power station is?"
Sam looked at him, hiding a smile at the state of the man's clothes, knowing it wasn't funny, but needing the smile more than he needed the self-lecture on appropriate responses.
"Two blocks down and three over," Marcus called out. Looking at him, Sam saw Marcus hadn't missed the torn and ragged shirt either, his mouth tucked in at the corners.
Steve waved and backed up, turning around when he had the room.
"They looked dishevelled," Idan said, wiping his face with the end of his shirt.
"They did indeed," Marcus agreed readily, his glance catching Sam's and the two of them bursting into laughter. Sam doubted they would ever hear that story from the three hunters.
Trout Mountains, Nevada
Ellie rolled to one side as Maluch fell toward her, her shoulder still tingling from the brush of Castiel's fingertips. She'd just missed out, she thought, aiming the SIG at the nephilim's head. Dean would be furious.
She fired twice then heard the click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber, and Maluch shook his head, getting to his hands and knees.
"You have been infinitely more trouble than you're worth," the nephilim snarled at her.
She rolled over and up, fingers hitting the magazine release and the empty clip falling free as she pulled a new full one from her jacket pocket.
"You don't know what I'm worth," she said, slamming the fresh clip in hard, fading backwards as he stumbled toward her, the bullet wounds slowly closing up, the bloodflow slowing.
He laughed, the sound utterly devoid of humour. "I know that if I kill you now, Dean Winchester will break and I'll be able to take him as easily as his children."
Ellie stopped moving and smiled at him.
"Then you don't know Dean at all," she said, and the gun snapped up, the muzzle flashes blinding in the darkness, the booming retort continuous.
She swung around, sensing the presence behind and to one side of her as Reuma reached out for her, snapping off two shots into the woman's heart and another through her eye. The impacts at such close range knocked the woman backward and Ellie ran between them, gaining distance, turning and firing again as Maluch got up.
At this rate she was going to run out of bullets before she could do any damage, she thought acerbically, shooting a fast sideways look at the woman who lay on the ground.
She stopped shooting, and pulled the knife from her belt, walking back toward Maluch, every muscle and tendon and nerve stretched out and ready. Take the heart and he'll die for good. The thought was immediately satisfying.
"You don't know the full-bloods, Maluch," she said conversationally as she got closer. "They loathe nephilim; they'll kill you if they even so much as think you're plotting to get back to Heaven."
"What would you know of angels or nephilim, human?" He sneered at her.
"More than you, apparently."
He was watching her narrowly, his expression bemused, when his gaze caught the glint of the knife in the darkness.
"Not so much as you think, if you hope to take my life." He accelerated toward her.
Ellie shifted abruptly to the right, giving the impression that her weight was over that foot and he turned to intercept her, his long arms closing around air as she reversed to the left and swung around behind him, the knife driving through the ribs in his back, and the SIG pressed against the back of his skull, her finger pulling smoothly on the trigger. He dropped in front of her, and she fell forward with him, keeping her grip on the knife, and the end of the barrel pressed hard against the back of his head.
Need two hands, she thought distantly, and shoved the SIG back through her belt, shifting her knee on his back as she wrapped both hands around the hilt and levered the blade back and forth against the bones, hearing them crack and split, shift apart.
He rolled suddenly and she fell to the side, the knife still in her hand, his hand curved around her throat, pinning her to the ground.
"You're not that strong, human." He smiled down at her, and lifted his other hand, the fingers drawing together to form an arrowhead. "Let me show you how it's done."
The roar of wings in the clearing sent dirt and leaves and needles flying into the air and argentine light flooded the night. Ellie felt a hand grip her shoulder and the nephilim's weight was gone, the dust was gone, she was floating in darkness and then falling to her knees on pale beige carpet.
"Mommy!"
"Mom!"
"Ellie."
The voices were close and familiar and Ellie looked up, smiling at them as they surrounded her, breathing in their individual and mixed scents deeply.
One day later. Forest Edge, Oregon
Dean stretched out on the bed, looking at the smooth white plaster of the ceiling, washed in the pale gold light of sunrise like watered silk. He rolled over and slid his arms around the woman who slept beside him.
She'd given him a highly edited version of what had happened, and he knew it. Cas had filled in some of the blanks, but John had been the most informative, his eyes shining with pride as he'd told his father the full details of what had happened once they'd left Winnemucca.
It had been hard to keep his expression neutral as he'd listened to his son's story, hard to keep his feelings from showing. He must have managed it, because John had gone to sleep with a smile as he'd pulled up the covers and turned off the light.
He'd debated asking her about it, specifically about the discrepancies between her account and those of his son and the angel, then decided against it. It wouldn't have helped her to tell him every detail—and it sure as shit hadn't helped him to hear them. Maybe it was better to just file it away as a job done and forget about it.
They couldn't forget about the firstborn, though. Baraquiel and his brothers had retrieved Chasina and Lazio from Winnemucca's small lockup, and bound them. They were currently in the Watcher's basement, presumably contemplating their sins. Baraquiel was convinced the others would come looking for them, and for him and Sam, and their children, and the nephilim would try to take them whenever any Winchester poked their noses out.
He was less certain. Maluch was the leader, officially or unofficially, from what Chasina had intimated to her father and from all accounts, he was emotional, immature, easily goaded. He would be more dangerous now, his plans fucked up twice. If Maluch ever got his hands on any of them, there'd be no mercy given.
Dean wasn't sure what to do about that, or even if there was anything he could do. Cas had promised to be there if he needed him. The angel had returned to Heaven, Dean hoping he'd been able to stay under the angelic radar coming and going.
In his arms, Ellie stirred and rolled over, her thigh sliding up his. He felt his breath catch as he looked down at her half-open eyes, the slow smile curving her lips. Her hand moved up his chest and he smiled back, desire pushing his thoughts aside, an electrical charge spreading out through him, following her touch.
