Chapter 19 Hunted
Norridgewock Airport, Maine
The Cougar's tyres squealed as Rudy swung the wheel, racing down the service road and onto the runway, heading for a large hangar to one side of the field. Dean glanced at his watch, impressed in spite of himself by the speed and driving skills of the man behind the wheel. Following them, the grey pickup was driven by Pierre Belanger, a French-Canadian hunter and member of Rudy's team. Carl and Charlie were several hundred yards behind the pickup, Carl goosing his red truck when the route became clear.
Rudy pulled up next to the hangar, turning off the engine as a plane trundled out, propellers spinning lazily, the green and white paintwork advising the plane belonged to Hanlon-Ryerson Enterprises. Dean looked at the name, wondering why it rang a bell in some memory. He got out as Rudy did, and the plane slowed to a halt, the engines still running but the props gradually slowing down.
The door to the aircraft opened and a short flight of steps extended to the ground. A man hurried down them, crossing the apron toward them and Dean knew why the name had seemed familiar.
No fucking way, he thought, shock hitting him at the sight of the long face, with its thin-lipped mouth, watery blue eyes and short-cropped dark blonde hair. The last time he'd seen that face, the hunter had been looking at him over the barrel of a gun, his balaclava pulled up.
Walt Ryerson stopped dead when he saw Dean, his eyes widening in matching disbelief.
"Walt, long time no see," Dean said. Rudy looked from one to the other.
"You two know each other?"
"In a manner of speaking," Dean acknowledged, with a humourless smile. "Where's Roy?"
Walt glanced at Rudy and shook his head. "Died, four years ago. Vampire got him."
"What a shame."
"Dean—"
"You two got a history, can you save it for later?" Rudy interrupted, looking from his partner to Dean. "We're in a rush, remember?"
"Sure." Dean looked at the plane behind Walt and drew in a deep breath.
Statistically safer than swimming at a beach, he told himself, walking toward it. Safer than driving on the freeway in Boston or LA.
His stomach imitated an out of control elevator and he ignored it, forcing himself to climb the steps. Thing was half the size of a regular plane, but maybe it would stay up better. Less weight. Safer than going to a hospital. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead and he stopped halfway up the steps, dragging in another deep breath, insisting his legs keep moving. Safer than being outside in a lightning storm. There wasn't a choice. They had to make up the time they'd lost. Had to get to Oregon before the firstborn could find Ellie and Sam.
No choice. Get on board.
Rudy looked at Walt as Pierre walked up to them. "What the hell?"
Walt turned and watched Winchester climbing onto the plane. "Some history, that's all. Nothing we can't work out."
"Better be," Rudy warned him. "She fuelled and pre-flight done?"
Walt nodded, turning as the red pickup pulled up next to the Cougar and Carl and Charlie got out. "More hunters?"
"Yeah, just them. Flight plan?" Rudy headed toward the plane.
"Yep, fuel stop scheduled in Sioux Falls, then we're good to Bend," Walt confirmed, turning to follow Rudy as Carl and Charlie came up to them. "Five hours to Sioux Falls. We've got a good forecast and nothing nasty predicted before Wyoming."
"How long from SD?"
"That'll depend a bit on the weather," Walt said as he climbed the steps. "Say another eight hours to be on the safe side."
Rudy nodded and followed the hunter up the narrow aisle to the cockpit. Dean was sitting in an aisle seat, seat-belt already buckled, his fingers curled over the arms of the seat. Rudy stopped and looked at him.
"Flying not your thing?"
"No, I like the ground better," Dean muttered, looking up as Carl took the seat ahead of him and Charlie strapped in across the aisle. Pierre closed the steps and the door, taking the seat just next to it.
"When did, uh, Walt become a pilot?"
"He's been qualified for about fifteen years," Rudy said, glancing at the cockpit. "Just didn't want to get involved in the commercial side of things with the big airlines. He and I have overlapping interests around here, so we went halves in this baby."
"Well, that's…good…I guess," Dean said, looking out the window as the engine notes changed and the props began turning again. The scenery outside was moving. "Better let you get up there, do whatever it is you do."
Rudy smiled, and turned away, glancing back over his shoulder. "We'll try to keep it smooth."
Think about Walt, Dean told himself, and what you'll do to him as soon as you touch the ground in Bend.
"Right."
He made us and we just snuffed his brother, you idiot. You want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester's on your ass, 'cause I don't. Shoot 'im.
The boom of the pump had been deafening, but he hadn't heard it, the magnum twelve-gauge shot killing him before his senses could register anything. Walt had been right, he thought as the plane taxied to the runway and began to pick up speed, killing Sam but leaving him alive would've left him with nothing better to do than hunt the pair of them down and take them out in the most creative way he could've come up with.
The engines were roaring and the nose of the plane lifted a little, and Dean tightened his grip on the armrests, forcing air in and out of his lungs, his eyes closed tightly. There was a small bounce as they left the ground and the plane climbed, gravity and acceleration and the angle of its ascent pressing him back in the seat. He found himself concentrating fiercely on the noise of the engines, listening for any change in their sustained drone, a flickered sideways glance through the starboard-side window showing the barely visible blur of the propeller.
When they'd been returned unceremoniously to their bodies in the motel room, other things had overridden the need to look for Walt and Roy, and he'd actually forgotten about them for a while, dealing with the apocalypse, the devil, Death and everything else. In Cicero, he'd thought briefly about leaving Lisa and Ben, going out and finding the two hunters and killing them, but he'd let go of the idea, knowing it was driven more by his lack of success in finding a way to rescue Sam than a desire for revenge. His promise had held him, and the truth was he couldn't raise the necessary anger to go after them anyway. He'd met the pair a few times over the years, first hunting with his father, then later on at the roadhouse with Sam. They'd never been all that highly thought of by most of the hunters he'd known.
The plane levelled out and he opened his eyes slowly. It felt as steady as a rock, and he risked a quick look out the window, the world a long way below them, no details visible, just the humped relief of the landscape, like a three-dimensional map. He wasn't sure if he found that reassuring or not.
The intercom crackled briefly, then Rudy's voice came over the speakers.
"'Kay, folks, we're cruising at twenty-five thousand with a slight headwind. Got a good forecast and about five hours before we hit Sioux Falls to refuel."
Five hours, Dean thought, wiping his hands on his jeans. There was no question it wasn't a more efficient way to get around the country, if you could discount the whole falling-out-of-air thing.
The last two days of non-stop driving and chasing and disappointments crashed into him as he relaxed, and he didn't feel his eyelids drop, or his head roll to the side to rest against the seat back or see the slight smiles Carl and Charlie exchanged as they noticed.
Forest Edge, Oregon
Trish sat in the kitchen, feeding Adrienne and watching the preparations through the window as Garth and Tamsin and her husband checked over the boundaries and zones surrounding the house.
They were protected here, she thought, the nephilim couldn't see them, wouldn't be able to find them. Baraquiel and Chaz had warded all the cars, and she and Talya had driven to Bend the previous day to buy enough stores to keep them going for a month without needing to go out again.
She looked around as Ellie came in, brows rising slightly as she saw her sister-in-law's tension.
"What's wrong?"
Ellie went straight to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup.
"None of this makes any sense." She scowled into her cup for a moment, then carried it over to the table, sitting down opposite Trish. "The firstborn can't see us. They can't possibly take on Castiel with only three of them, and Maluch injured. Why are they coming here?"
"What did Baraquiel say?"
"He doesn't know, he can't figure it out either," Ellie said, putting her cup down and rubbing the inside of her wrist over her forehead. "They just changed flights. They'll land in Portland in about three hours. Rudy took off from Norridgewock a few minutes ago. It'll take them five hours to get to South Dakota and then between six and eight hours to get across the mountains and home."
She looked at Trish. "They can see Dean, if they've had time to pull out their scrying bowl and take a look. They must know he's not that far behind them. And even if he wasn't on their trail, we're invisible to them, and ready for them anyway. Why come here?"
"Something we don't know?" Trish asked, wiping her daughter's face and setting the spoon back in the bowl. "Was there a flight from O'Hare that would have placed them closer to Winnemucca? Or Lovelock?"
Ellie shook her head. "No, not till tomorrow. But why not keep the plane they stole? They could've found a small airport, warded the damned thing so we had no hope of seeing them, taken their time to get wherever they wanted to go."
"Worried about the cops?"
Ellie gave her a dry look. "Didn't seem too worried about them when they were driving."
"True," Trish agreed. "Do we know them as well as we think we do? I mean, do their fathers?"
"Their limitations? Their abilities?" Ellie raised her head and looked at her. "I think so. But they've been around for a long time, so it's not to say that they haven't picked up a few tricks of their own the Watchers don't know anything about."
"That's not a reassuring thought," Trish remarked unhappily, her arm closing a little more tightly around her daughter. "Is there any way we can find out what those might be?"
"I doubt it," Ellie said, looking out the window. The afternoon was getting on, the light turning reddish. She wasn't sure if Rudy would keep going, cross the mountains overnight or wait until morning. She wasn't sure if landing at Bend was such a great option, either. If the nephilim were watching, they would see Dean there. It would give them a starting place to look that was too close for comfort. Was that the idea? Had they taken a plane to Portland to draw the hunters after them, keep an eye on Dean?
Or were they just running blind? Laney had called a couple of hours ago, when they'd gotten Callie to a hospital. She'd said Maluch hadn't been healing, that it seemed that the burns were infected, possibly gangrenous. All seven together could heal him, she thought, their powers greater than those of angels. Was that why they were coming here, in view, traceable, to get to the others before he died?
It was a more appealing prospect than any of the alternatives. She finished her coffee and got up, walking slowly to the sink.
"What?" Trish asked, seeing the tension dissipating.
"It might be that they're just panicking, because Maluch is too badly injured," Ellie said, turning to look at her. "They might be running to the house to heal him."
"That would be better for us."
"Yeah." She looked out of the window above the sink. "Not so much for Cas, though."
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Dean unbuckled the seat-belt gratefully as the plane slowed down and taxied off the runway to the open parking bays. He'd made it. The first leg, anyway, he corrected himself. As flights went, it hadn't been too bad. Steady and smooth and he'd slept through three hours of it. He wasn't sure if it was a first or not. The only two previous flights he'd made hadn't been good comparators.
He looked up as Rudy made his way down the narrow aisle from the cockpit.
"See you're still with us," the hunter said with a grin. "It'll take us about an hour to refuel and do the checks." He gestured to Pierre. "Pierre'll take you down the pilot's lounge, get some coffee, stretch your legs. The next bit'll be a different story."
Dean stood up, wondering what the hell that meant.
"You worked with Hanlon for long?" Dean leaned on the bar, gazing absently out the large windows at the plane, his fingers curled around the long neck. On the next seat, Pierre was nursing a small bourbon.
"Ten years now," Pierre nodded. He wasn't tall, somewhere around five foot ten inches, but broad and hard. Black hair, warm olive skin and dark eyes gave the square face a faintly dangerous look. "I was in the army, regular, and my unit was sent to stop what the police thought was a riot, in a little town near the border."
Dean looked at him curiously. "And?"
"And it wasn't a riot, it was a nightmare," Pierre smiled at him, the expression disparaging. "Three or four thousand in the town, most of them had a pet dog. They turned out not to be pet dogs, and they turned the families they were with overnight, and attacking everyone else." He shrugged and lifted his glass. "We didn't know what we were shooting; dogs, or people, or monsters. Rudy and a few others came in, shot them with silver, saved our asses."
The Alpha skinwalker had been experimenting early, Dean mused. Ten years ago put it around '07.
"Must have been a surprise," he said.
"Oui, yes, it was. A good one." Pierre shook his head at the memory. "We were trapped in a school house with about fifty civilians, and they came in, gave us ammo, told us what we were fighting…had Rudy told me such things on the street, I would have laughed at him. But we didn't laugh."
Dean's mouth quirked. "Yeah, well, seeing's believing."
"Yeah."
"How many did he have with him then?"
"Ah…there were seven at that time. Rudy and Vincent, Guillaume and Carmen, who are still with us; and two women and a man who had joined up with him over the Canadian border—Laney Pike, Jeremy Mann and Ellie Morgan. You know them?"
Dean smiled. "Yeah, I know them. Ellie's name is Winchester now."
"Merde. Really?" Pierre's gaze flicked to the window and back again. "How long?"
"Uh, six years," Dean said after a second's mental calculation. He hadn't missed the man's surprise or the glance out at the plane. He could think of a reason for it. He found he didn't want to.
Pierre shook his head slowly, holding out his hand. "Well, congratulations. She was an extraordinary woman, when I knew her."
"She still is," Dean said lightly, releasing the other man's hand and picking up his beer again. "That was 2007?"
"No, '06," Pierre corrected him absently, his gaze going to his watch. "It was near the end of the year, after the first snows."
Sometime around Gordon's reappearance, he thought. And when Sam's abilities had been growing, scaring the hell out of him.
"Didn't hear about that," he said. "A whole town…I'm surprised we didn't pick up something about it."
"Rudy and Ellie were very thorough with the clean-up," Pierre said, finishing his beer. "We backed them up when it was all over, burned the bodies, said there'd been an outbreak, that we'd quarantined the town. Ellie broke into the CDC database, somehow, don't ask me how, but she logged in communications between local doctors and them and they never questioned it."
Yeah, sounded like her, Dean thought with an internal smile. Tell them what they want to hear and they'll leave you alone. In 2006, she'd been twenty-one.
"How old was Hanlon then?"
"Young." Pierre smiled at the recollection. "To us, he seemed young and hard at the same time. Maybe twenty-three? Twenty-four? I don't know for sure."
It was young to be running a team of hunters and handling jobs like that, Dean thought. He wondered about Rudy's upbringing, already experienced at that age.
"Time to go," Pierre interrupted his thoughts, gesturing to the window and getting to his feet. He turned and nodded at Carl and Charlie, sitting at a table a few feet away, and turned back to Dean.
"This next bit, it will be bumpy, not so smooth. There's always turbulence over the mountains." The Franco-American grinned callously at Dean, relenting with a pat on the shoulder. "Just remember that both Walt and Rudy are good pilots."
"Right," Dean said, regretting the beer as his stomach began to knot up. He got to his feet and followed Pierre out of the bar area. The sky was still filled with light but the sunshine was disappearing quickly, reddening to the west and already a deep mauve to the east. They'd be flying over the Rockies in the dark, at a high enough altitude to avoid most of what Rudy had called the 'bumpy bits'. Probably be less stressful if he didn't have to look down at the jagged peaks of the ranges as they flew over them, he thought.
"Good pilots," he repeated to himself, pretending he wasn't nervous. "Right."
Sheraton Portland Hotel, Portland, Oregon
The suite was small but suitable to their needs, Kitra thought as she eased Maluch down on the bed. She kept her face impassive as she removed the already-sticky shirt and coat from him and the smell of rotting flesh rose and surrounded her. Nothing they'd tried was working on the deep burns that seemed to be eating his body slowly, burning like acid into him. Each dressing came away thick with pus and with more blackened pieces of his skin attached to them.
Maluch opened his eyes, and focused slowly on her. The corneas were yellowed now; the irises bleaching out from the centres. He lifted a hand and caught her wrist and she looked down at him.
"Chuma?"
"He's preparing the circle, Maluch. We have everything we need."
"Want…want…to…cont-rol," the nephilim croaked, his chest heaving as he tried to get more breath.
Kitra nodded. "You will. Let me clean these, put new dressings on—"
Maluch's eyes rolled up tiredly. "Does…no…good…you…know…"
"You don't know how much it's slowing down the process, Maluch," she said. "Let me do it."
His eyes dropped shut, his fingers falling from her wrist and she sighed, walking back to the main living area of the suite to get the pastes she'd made up, the washes and the dressings. In the mirrored wall at the end of the short hallway, her reflection brought her to a halt. Her height only accentuated how much weight she'd lost through tension and fear in the past few weeks, her outfit torn and stretched, her long, black hair braided tightly in a coronet around her head, dull with lack of washing. Her normally smooth, golden skin was dull as well. She looked a mess, she thought, hurrying past the mirror into the living area. Worse than a mess, she looked human.
Chuma knelt on the pale blue carpet, his face drawn with concentration as he poured the pale yellow powder in a perfect circle around himself.
The nephilim was tall and broad-shouldered, his long, platinum-blonde hair pulled back from his face and clasped at the nape of his neck, the colour almost indistinguishable from the pale, smooth skin of his face. His brows and lashes were darker, and his eyes were a very dark brown, almost black, the features standing out vividly. Looking more closely, she realised he hadn't escaped the stresses of their pursuit either. His clothing was as filthy and torn as hers, rust-coloured stains over the sleeves from the beating he'd given the girl.
Kitra watched him for a moment, wondering if this would work. It had to, she thought fiercely. They couldn't lose Maluch.
Two hours later, approximately twenty-two thousand feet over Worland, Wyoming
They hit the first patch of rough air as the plane passed over the foothills ranging along the eastern flank of the Tetons. Dean gripped the arm-rests as the plane dropped suddenly, engines faltering, then steadying, the plane rising again. The drone resumed, and he wiped at his face, wondering how much more of that kind of thing he was going to be able to take. Not a huge amount, he thought, his misgivings about flying generally, and specifically right now, crowding into his head.
The intercom crackled. "Sorry about that, people, we're gonna climb a bit higher, see if we can't over this updraft. Buckle up tight."
Dean cinched the belt over his hips an inch tighter and hunched down in the seat, glowering at the back of the seat in front of him.
The plane's intercom squawked again, and he looked up at the speaker as he heard Walt's voice.
"What the fuck is that?"
Had Rudy meant them to hear this, Dean wondered? It wasn't exactly a reassuring announcement for the passengers.
"That's—that shouldn't be there," Rudy's voice sounded worried. Turn off the fucking intercom, Dean thought. We don't need to hear this.
"Whiskey Sierra Echo Four, this is Kilo Lima Charlie Zero Niner, come in."
There was another crackle on the intercom then they heard the airport's response. "Kilo Lima Charlie Zero Niner, this is Whiskey Sierra Echo Four receiving you. What's the problem?"
"Whiskey Sierra Echo Four, we are seeing a large, repeat, large storm over the Tetons north by west of your position. Are you seeing that on your instrumentation, over."
"Negative, Kilo Lima Charlie Zero Niner, we have no readings of a storm over that area at this time. You sure that's cumulus you're eyeballing, not just low cloud cover under the mountain peaks, over."
"Negative, Whiskey Sierra Echo Four, we are cruising, twenty-four thousand above the deck and those are thunderheads we're looking at. Request weather forecast revision, over."
"Kilo Lima Charlie Zero Niner, I have no weather revisions to this morning's forecast. We are not seeing a cloud increase, over."
Dean frowned as he listened to the airport. He leaned over in his seat and looked through the window, seeing the dark grey clouds over the mountains, shading through smoke-grey, dark cream and brilliant white as they towered above the plane's altitude. Why the hell didn't the assholes just look out the window, he wondered tetchily.
"Roger, Whiskey Sierra Echo Four, this is Kilo Lima Charlie Zero Niner over and out."
"What the hell was that all about?" Rudy said. "Ah…fuck."
The intercom crackled and fell silent, matched by the silence in the cabin.
A moment later the cockpit door opened and Rudy came out, stopping in front of Dean and looking from one to the other of the hunters.
"Hard to have missed the conversation we just had with JAC. We're seeing a storm front, right over the mountains and they're not. Don't really know what that means, but if you want to miss out on the light show, we'll need to make the decision now, so we can land at Jackson." He looked at Dean.
"Can you get above it?" Dean glanced out through the window again.
"Might be able to, at the moment all we've got is a visual and something undefined on the radar."
"Can we get through it?" Carl asked, shooting a sideways at Dean's face.
"It'll be a hell of a ride, if we do," Rudy answered, looking at Dean. "It's no fun going through a thunderstorm over mountains."
"I can live with no fun, Hanlon," Dean said, his voice tight. "So long as the emphasis is on live."
Rudy grinned, nodding. "We'll let's see what we can see then."
He turned around and returned to the cockpit and Dean hummed, under his breath.
Lightning flashed in the clouds next to him and he saw one of the tendrils from the main bolt touch the edge of the wing, crawling over it and crackling into nothing. He turned away from the window and closed his eyes, the shriek of the wind and the deep crashes of thunder over the struggling roar of the engines getting clearer in the absence of sight. The plane rose several feet and then dropped abruptly, leaving his stomach somewhere in the region of the back of his throat, his breath hissing in as his fingers tightened on the arm-rests.
Fuck flying, he thought furiously, as the plane levelled out for a moment then dropped again sharply. Never again, not for any reason.
The next bolt of lightning hit the main fuselage, and the lights flickered crazily for several seconds then went out, plunging the cabin into a strobe-lit darkness. He heard the engine closest to him sputter and die and felt the plane lurching to one side, a cross-wind forcing it off its course, the pressure against the plane vibrating fiercely through the framework, through the soles of his boots.
"—eople, hang on!"
The plane dipped forward, the nose pointing earthwards. Dean could see snow-covered peaks, far below, through the racing gaps in the cloud, fluorescing in the blue-white lightning strikes to either side of them, and the darker clefts where the wind had scoured the snow cover clean, leaving bare rock.
Over the cacophony of noise, the uneven and faltering engines, explosive crashes of thunder, the whistling of the winds along the hull and the random banging coming from somewhere inside the plane as baggage fell across the canted cabin, the hunters could hear Hanlon and Walt shouting to each other, desperately trying to pull the plane out of the dive, restart the engines, do something, anything to stop their headlong descent into the unforgiving mountains below.
Dean watched the landscape get closer and closer, feeling the plane twist, then roll along its long axis, shuddering as a down-draught hit them. The strong wind accelerated with a howl as they lifted over the peaks and dropped, slamming into the side of the plane. He caught a flashing glimpse of the peak—next to him—his disbelieving eyes taking in the details of the folds and shadows in the rock face when the lightning illuminated it starkly, then it was gone, they were gone, dropping lower, still nose-heavy, the eddies and cross-currents of wind stronger and more chaotic below the tops of the ranges.
"—left rudder, hit the snow—" Rudy's voice screamed from the cockpit and the plane started to turn a little. The noise when the wingtip hit the protruding rock was enormous, metal shrieking, the wing ripped off and wind filling the cabin, caterwauling as the plane dragged its belly over another protrusion of rock, and the high-pitched screech drilled into Dean's head.
The nose lifted for a moment, then dropped.
Forest Edge, Oregon
Baraquiel ran into the kitchen, his gaze sweeping around the small group sitting at the table. "Ellie, the plane's crashed."
"What?" Sam's head snapped up.
"Where?" Ellie stood up.
"They were crossing a mountain range, over Wyoming—"
"Tetons?" Sam interjected, looking at Ellie. She nodded, her gaze on the Watcher.
"There was a storm, came up very quickly. I couldn't see the details, just the plane dropping and then hitting the side of the mountain."
"Which side, Baraquiel?"
"Western, I think. I'm not certain. The storm is still there, I can't see anything further through it."
"Ellie, we need to call Cas," Sam got to his feet and walked around the table. "We need him to find them—"
Save them, he thought, his gaze on her, knowing she would know what he was thinking without him having to say it out loud.
Ellie nodded, rising then stopped, the colour draining from her face as her gaze flicked between Baraquiel and Sam.
"God…Sam, what if this why they took the commercial flight? To get here, make that storm," she said, her voice small and tight. She turned to Baraquiel. "You said that they could do this...make spells, change things, even if they're not altogether?"
"Simple things, yes." The Watcher nodded uneasily. "Weather making is simple."
Ellie turned back to Sam. "If we send Cas, the other four are unguarded in Winnemucca. What if that is what Maluch is waiting for?"
The nephilim had landed in Portland and Chaz had reported that they'd stayed there, close by the airport, in some kind of hotel. There were a few to choose from, she thought, surrounding the airport. They didn't have the resources right now to send anyone down to look.
Turning away from Sam and Baraquiel, she sank back down into the chair at the end of the table. Soleil, Trent and Kath were still in Lewiston, staying with Callie. Laney and Jeremy were on their back to Michigan. Twist was driving back here. Jim and Ginny were down in Texas. Adam had gone with Frank to Los Angeles; the university had a number of ancient texts from Egypt that seemed to be related to the nephilim. Steve and Red were still here, and Garth, Tamsin, Idan, Oran, Sagi and Talya. She bit her lip as the pieces turned around in her mind, trying to make them fit together, fit into a plan that would work.
"Call Cas, Sam," she said, looking up at him. "If they are going there, then it'll have to be us to hold them when they turn up."
He nodded once and turned on his heel, heading for the garden.
"What are you going to do?" Baraquiel asked.
She pulled in a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly as she looked at all the disparate elements.
"Cas can take a few of us to the house, then go to Wyoming to find Dean and the others," she said, rubbing her fingertips over her forehead. "If this is a diversion, then Maluch will go to Winnemucca, and we'll be waiting for them."
Trish's expression was worried. "Who goes?"
"Steve and Red, Baraquiel, Sam and I'll go to Nevada," Ellie answered, turning around. "We'll make a holy oil trap and hold them there until Cas gets back."
"What about us?"
"You, Garth and Tamsin and the kids go into the panic room." Ellie looked at Baraquiel. "Sariel, Shamsiel and Chaz, Idan, Oran, Sagi and Talya will guard the house. Twist should be back sometime tomorrow, and he can help out with that."
Castiel entered the kitchen, followed by Sam. "I cannot get another angel to guard the firstborn in Nevada."
"No. That's alright," Ellie said, shaking her head. "We'll wait for the three there."
"I can't see Dean, Ellie. Or his companions."
Sam stepped past the angel. "We can probably narrow their location down to a mile or so," he said, looking at Ellie and lifting his phone. "Dean's had his GPS enabled for the last three weeks."
She nodded, facing Castiel as Sam turned away and dialled into the phone carrier.
"Cas, you'll have to take us to Nevada before you go to Wyoming."
The angel's gaze moved uncertainly between her and Baraquiel. "You are sure the three have planned this?"
"No. Not sure," she said. "It's just the only thing that makes sense to me right now."
"There is very little that can hold the firstborn, Ellie," Cas said. "The trap will have to be airtight."
Ellie turned to the Watcher. "We'll lay down holy oil and try to tempt them into the trap. I don't know what else we can do."
"What else can hold them, Castiel?" Baraquiel asked. It was the first he'd heard of anything other than holy oil being a sufficient barrier.
"I haven't seen it for myself, but it might be possible to use electricity as shielding against them," the angel said, brows drawn together as he searched his memories. "The forces they use, like all of us, are energy. Shielding might disrupt those forces, scatter them."
"Shielding…like…a Faraday cage?" Ellie stared at him, wondering why she hadn't thought of it herself.
"Yes, in theory. A neutral field. Allowing no electrical magnetic energy to pass in or out."
"A Faraday cage? That's a lot more time-consuming than the holy oil trap. Do we have copper wire and mesh here?" Sam asked, closing his phone as he came back into the kitchen. "43.75° N, 110.83° W," he added to the angel.
"Yes, we do," Ellie said. "I bought rolls for the panic room and there's quite a bit left over. Steve, Red, could you get it? It's at the back of the third bay of the garage."
The two men nodded, hurrying out. Sam gestured to the hall. "What other gear do you want to take, Ellie?"
"Regular gear bags, hollow point ammunition and the .45s," Ellie said, heading for the basement, Sam and Baraquiel following. "Holy oil, whatever Baraquiel needs for scrying…?" She glanced back at the Watcher.
"I have all I need, ready to go," Baraquiel confirmed.
"Trish, can you call Garth, tell him to bring his family here now?" Ellie said, stopping at the doorway and letting Sam go past. "The panic room will be safest for all of you."
She hurried down the stairs, following Sam. She'd need tools as well as weapons; hammer, nails, staple gun and staples, shrink to insulate the wire ends if need be. There was a household tool box in the basement.
The hunters reassembled ten minutes later, Steve and Red carrying rolls of mesh, wire, and the tool boxes, Sam and Ellie and Baraquiel with their gear bags.
Cas gestured to stand closer together. "Are you ready to go now?"
Sam walked to Tricia and kissed her, her fingers closing around his arm for a moment then releasing him.
"Don't get killed," Trish said to him. He gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring.
"I won't."
He turned away, returning to Castiel, and crowding close to the angel with the others. The sound of wings filled the kitchen and then they were gone.
Teton Ranges, Wyoming
Cold.
Noise.
Pain.
Dean struggled to open his eyes, the lashes stuck together. He lifted a hand and winced as the movement brought a fresh flood of pain to his side.
An ice-filled wind was shrieking through the rent and crushed cabin, robbing him of the little body heat he still had. His head felt like shattered glass, even moving his eyes as he rubbed at the sticky liquid coating his lashes hurt. He looked down carefully, seeing the arm-rest of the seat angled up, pressing hard against his ribs. That explained the ache there, he thought. His foot was jammed under the seat in front of him, and he pushed back against his own seat, wriggling it until the boot came loose and he could pull it out.
Lightning sheeted overhead and with the flash, he saw the others. Carl was unconscious, head tipped back against his seat. Charlie was down between the rows, a dark, unmoving shape barely lit by the emergency lights that ran along the aisle. He heard a deep groan ahead of him and raised his head, narrowing his eyes to slits when the flashlight beam played over the cabin and hit him in the face.
"You alright?" Hanlon's voice was hoarse and thin.
"Yeah, mostly," he answered, closing his hands into fists, moving his feet. Nothing seemed to be too badly damaged. "You?"
"Busted my nose, I think," Rudy said, stepping cautiously over a seat that lay blocking the narrow aisle. In the light reflected from the flashlight Dean could see the man's nose had been pushed sideways, both eyes swollen and red around the sockets. "I might've cracked some ribs, breathing's a bitch."
"What happened?"
"Combination of cross-draught and down-draught, caught us as we dropped below the level of the peaks," Rudy grunted as he turned the light onto Carl and Charlie. "Couldn't pull her out of it after the engines stalled."
"That storm…" Dean left the sentence unfinished. Rudy nodded.
"Not natural," he agreed. "The mountains get extreme weather, storms come up fast, are violent, but not like that. Nothing like that."
He turned the beam back onto the seats surrounding Dean, his forehead creasing as he looked at them. "If I haul back on this one, you think you can get out of there?"
Dean felt around himself and nodded. "I just need enough room to get clear of the arm-rest."
Rudy put the flashlight on the floor and moved behind the seat, gritting his teeth against the flex of his ribs as he pulled back. Dean shifted toward the window as the space got bigger, and pulled his legs up, nodding to the other man as soon as he was free.
"Walt's got a broken leg, I think," Rudy said as he let go of the seat and backed into the aisle again. "It'll take a couple of us to get him out."
Dean climbed slowly over the seat backs and pulled his flashlight from his coat pocket, flicking it on. The beam caught the other side of the plane and he saw Pierre, knowing Rudy's gaze had caught the image as well. The door beside the hunter's seat had been pushed into the plane, the struts from the folding steps were twisted to one side, going through the man's chest. He turned the light away, and neither man spoke.
Leaning over Charlie, Dean felt her pulse beating strongly against the thin skin on the side of her neck. With the light on her, the dark mottling rising on the side of her face was clear. Her right arm was bent unnaturally under the seat in front of him, the cloth of her denim jacket a dark red along the sleeve.
"Charlie's got a broken arm," he said, looking up at Hanlon. Rudy nodded, leaning over to check Carl.
"Just out cold. I can't see anything else," he said, taking a handful of Carl's jacket and pulling him upright in the seat. Carl coughed and his eyes snapped open, blinking rapidly against the bright beam of the flashlight.
"W-w-what—" he stuttered, looking around. "Dean?"
"Yeah, I'm here." Dean straightened. "Any injuries?"
Carl closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. "I feel sore, all over, pretty much but nothing major." He twisted around in the seat, looking over the back. "Is Charlie alright?"
"Alive. She's got a broken arm."
"Can you see the break?"
"No," Dean said, "You got your stuff here?"
"I hope so," Carl said, nodding to Rudy as he manoeuvred himself out of the seats. "It was down the back." He waved a hand toward the tail and Rudy followed the gesture with his flashlight. The grey metal case with its safety-orange lid was still in the net on the side of the cabin. Their gear bags had broken loose, in a jumble of cargo at the end of the tail.
Rudy looked out through the small window. The starboard-side wing was gone, but he could see the port-side wing through it, the metal fabrication bent up at an unlikely angle.
"Wings were full of fuel," he said, his gaze shifting back to Dean. "Not sure how much time we're going to have to get everyone out so we should hustle."
Dean peered out the window. "There's nothing burning that can set them off, is there?"
A moment later a lightning bolt hit the mountainside above them. Rudy's face screwed up, his expression clear in the white light.
"Just those."
The plane had landed on the wingless side, mostly, Dean thought, glancing around as they carried Charlie out and down the mountainside a couple of hundred yards, into the lee of an overhanging spur of rock. Just as well, or Hanlon and Walt would've been dead on impact. The wing that was still attached to the frame had caught where the fold in the rock had narrowed, the nose of the plane flattened, but not crushed.
He followed Rudy back into the plane and they eased Walt onto the second stretcher, made up from two handrails and one of the small tarpaulins used to secure the cargo. Dean could smell the fuel now, on the snatches of wind that backed and eddied around the plane. Wouldn't take much to set it off, he thought.
The overhang was still too close to the plane and to the mountaintop. They couldn't stay there for long. If lightning didn't hit the plane, they'd still freeze before morning.
"We need to get our gear out of there, as much as we can," Rudy said, looking back up at the wreckage. Dean nodded, dragging in a breath and climbing again over the slick, iced rocks.
In the plane's tail, he picked his way carefully across the canted floor, and grabbed the first two bags, passing them back to Rudy and reaching forward to pick up a couple more.
The strike, right outside, made them both jump. Dean's head snapped around, the after-image of the blue-white light superseded by flickering yellow and red. Rudy scowled, turning and throwing the bags out through the hole in the fuselage as far he could.
"It's caught, get moving," he said, taking the next two bags and heaving them out. In reinforced metal cases, bolted to the cargo bay floor, there were munitions, including packs of C4 and grenades. The plane would more than explode when the fire reached the wing.
"That bag at the back," Hanlon said to Dean, gesturing to the side of the plane where some gear was stored in nets. "It's got camping gear. Grab it."
Dean crabbed sideways to the rear of the plane, pulling at the elasticised netting with one hand as he gripped the big black and grey duffel bag with the other. He could smell the fuel burning on the ground outside the plane.
The bag snagged on a piece of torn metal and he pulled harder, finally tearing the canvas to free it. He yanked it out and shuffled forward, feeling his way past the loose cargo.
Thirty yards from the plane, Rudy dragged the gear bags away, two in each hand. Dean threw the duffel out and scrambled down, one foot slipping on the iced metal floor and his leg catching the edge of the torn hole as he half-rolled out, ignoring the bright pain that lanced through the outside of his thigh. He stumbled down to the black duffel, the firelight lighting his way and casting his shadow along the rocks in front of him, growing stronger as it lit the surface of the deeper pool of aviation fuel under the wing.
He'd almost made the sheltering edge of the spur when the flames found their way into the fuel tanks. The whoompf of expanding air pushed him forward hard, and he cartwheeled off the narrow rock ledge, hitting the ground several yards below and to one side of the spur as the wing blew apart and shrapnel zipped over him into the darkness. The second, much bigger explosion followed the first in seconds, Rudy's ordnance overheating in the inferno. The whine of bullets and the concussive booms of the grenades echoed off the bare rock and drowned out the clap of thunder overhead.
Dean lay on his back, trying to get air back into his lungs, a steady trickle of liquid running down his neck and another soaking through his jeans. Close call, he thought, closing his eyes against the brightness of the flames. He hoped what they'd dragged clear was enough because he was pretty sure that there wasn't a piece of the plane larger than a half-dollar left.
Lovelock, Nevada
Ellie staggered as her feet reconnected with solid ground. The angel had gone, and she dropped her bag beside her. In the shadowy light, she could see counters and cupboards, the bright green of a microwave clock and hear the soft hum of a fridge. They were inside the house, which had been warded by the firstborn and again by Cas. Their presence there should be invisible to the three. Even hers.
"Where do you want to start?" Red looked down at her.
She looked at Sam. "You were here before. How many entrances are there? We could lay a trap at each, someone to light them?"
"No contact, you mean? Just hide and wait?" Sam frowned.
"Yeah, they won't know we're here, not until they're inside at least. And the other two will be carrying Maluch, I think."
He nodded. "Yeah."
He gestured to the front of the house. "Red, you and Steve want to take the front? Baraquiel and I can handle the back, there's just the one door going out to the pool. We'll run the mesh and wire around the nephilim already here and around those entrances," he said, looking back at Ellie. "There's an internal door to the garage, with a short tight hallway, you could take that. It's small enough to only need one."
She nodded and walked out of the kitchen, pulling out the small, ceramic bottle from her bag as she turned toward the garage.
Dean had told her the four firstborn in the house—Chasina, Idra, Lazio and Reuma—were held in three concentric circles of holy fire, in the living room. She was at the other end of the house from them, and they hadn't heard a sound since they'd been here. Steve and Red would be able to check on them as they went past to the front door.
She found the narrow hallway and nodded to herself, pouring out a wide square in front of the door leading to the garage. She could stay out of sight at the end, just drop her lighter onto the oil when she heard them enter.
It was a ten-hour drive roughly from Portland. She wondered if they would come through Bend and onto the 205, or stay in California and come up the other way through Reno. Both routes were around the same length. How much did they know about where the hunters were? Coming through Bend would only be a risk if they knew. She capped the oil bottle and returned it to her gear bag, sliding down the wall next to the hall and settling herself into a comfortable position. They'd had to stay somewhere to call the storm and crash the plane, she thought, shutting out the images that rose sharply. The quickest they could get here—the very quickest—would seven or eight hours.
She could hear sounds in the house. The others preparing their traps. Looking over the plan again, she couldn't see any holes. They had the element of surprise and there was no reason for the firstborn to suspect that traps had already been laid for them.
Sheraton Portland Hotel, Portland, Oregon
Chuma glanced at Maluch. "It's done, the plane is down."
"Are…dead?" Maluch dragged in a painful breath between the words, his remaining eye rolling around to Chuma.
"No," the nephilim said. "But we don't have to worry about them anymore. They won't be getting out of the mountains in a hurry. The crash site has been wound in illusion and walls of dreams. The angel won't be able to touch Heaven's power once he's there."
Maluch grimaced, struggling harder to sit up. Beside him, Kitra put her arm around him, lifting him higher, her gaze meeting Chuma's worriedly.
"No. Dead…want…to…kill…all."
Chuma flinched inwardly at the grating voice. Maluch was degenerating much faster as time went on, as if the burns from the holy oil were penetrating deeper into his body.
"We might need Winchester," he pointed out.
"No. Azazel is in…the…brother." He closed his eyes for several moments, trying to force strength into his dying body. "Amaros … not … Winchester."
Chuma looked up at Kitra in surprise. "I thought Winchester was descended from Azazel and Amaros, through the lines."
"We were wrong." She shook her head. "The Winchester bloodline was from Araquiel. His wife's bloodline is Amaros."
"So the children have both lines?"
"But Sam Winchester is still the strongest of all of Azazel's," she confirmed. "His children can substitute, if we can't get him."
Chuma bit back the comment in his mind. They'd spent months and months chasing Dean Winchester around for nothing. They should have been together when the opportunity arose to take his children and their mother, then they could have started the preparations immediately.
He pushed the thought aside and looked at Maluch. "Controlling any spell is going to hurt you worse, Maluch."
Maluch looked at him coldly, the once-vivid dark brown irises washed out now to a pale amber, the pupils tiny in the centres.
"Make…spell…"
Chuma nodded, cleaning away the remains of the circle he'd drawn for the storm, starting again for the new spell. The one he knew would be the easiest for Maluch to wield. It was one which would operate on its own so long as the wielder was alive.
Kitra watched him absently. She had a vehicle and she and Chuma had warded it thoroughly while Maluch had been sleeping. In some distant part of her mind, she could hear the others murmuring faintly. Not even their fathers had known about that, she thought with a chill satisfaction. They'd kept it a secret and now, thankfully, it was a way to get back to them. Maluch would die and soon unless they could all be together again, and feed the power of their union into his body.
Teton Range, Wyoming
The strengthening daylight bled in incrementally, between the thick, low cloud that filled the gaps between the peaks, swirled delicately along the flanks of the mountains. Instead of an indistinct dark blur, Dean realised he could now see an indistinct light blur, with the sharp rock and drifts and mounds of snow occasionally becoming visible amidst the shifting and nacreous curtain of white.
"We'll need to carry Walt," Carl said to him, and he turned his head to look over at the hunter. Ryerson was lying near the base of the rock overhang, his skin waxen, his eyes closed. The break had been clean, but the bone end had gone through the skin and it had taken Carl and Rudy a while to set it. Walt had passed out in the middle of the procedure.
Beyond Walt, Charlie was sitting up, her arm splinted and in a sling, her head tipped back, deep bruising shadowing half her face. Carl had straightened Rudy's nose and taped it, and taped the man's ribs as well.
Dean thought about what they could use to make a litter for Walt. A travois would be flexible than the stretcher, but it would depend on the terrain. The tree line was a couple hundred feet below them, invisible at the moment behind the grey walls of cloud. There'd be saplings, whitepine and fir and spruce. They could use one of the small tarpaulins, double-lashed with rope. He got to his feet, pushing back against the rock wall behind him.
"I'll come with," Rudy said, rolling onto his knees and picking up his rifle and an axe from the open gear bag beside him.
Dean looked at him for a moment then shrugged. Carl was fitter, but it was probably a better idea if he stayed with the injured hunters. If they could get down the mountain, off the rock and gravel scree and into the forest, they'd be warmer and less likely to all die of hypothermia in the next couple of hours.
He pulled his coat more closely around himself and moved down the slope cautiously. The temperatures had dropped steeply when the storm had worked out its rage, and most of the surfaces were gleaming with ice.
By the time they reached the thin forest that marked the edge of the tree-line, both men were stiff and tense, muscles trembling from the painstakingly slow descent, from the blisteringly cold wind that seemed to rise out of the iron-grey rock and deep snow pockets and reach through their clothes and into their bones.
Leaning in between the soft, springy boughs of a young fir, Rudy gestured to the west.
"There's a trail, maybe four or five miles across that valley, leads back to a little town called Alta," he said breathlessly, cupping his hand over his mouth slightly to warm the air. "I think the trail is about nine or ten miles along to the town, not sure about that. If we can get onto it, we might meet some traffic."
Dean studied the vaporous cloud that drifted unhurriedly around them. "Sounds like a plan."
He looked back up the slope they'd just come down. "Always assuming we can get back up there and get Walt and Charlie down without killing ourselves, or them."
Rudy conceded the point. "Yeah, always assuming that."
Dean took the axe from him and cut down two long, straight saplings, using his machete to trim the branches and roughly whittle the ends to a size more suitable for hands. It would be him and Carl handling the litter, he thought, glancing over his shoulder. At least on that slope. Rudy could help Charlie down, it wouldn't tax his ribs as much as carrying a deadweight.
The forest was thin here but another thirty or forty yards lower, it started to get thick. In there, sheltered from the wind by the evergreen foliage, they would be a lot warmer, the trail would be a lot easier, the slope nowhere near as steep.
He passed the axe back to Rudy and lifted the saplings onto his right shoulder, finding the balance point and curling his arm around them to anchor them tight.
"I can take one," Rudy protested, looking at them. Dean shook his head. He could feel the pull of the muscles over his ribs with the position of the logs. They weren't very heavy, despite being green, but they were heavy enough, and it would make Hanlon's ribs a lot worse if he tried to carry and climb at the same time.
Just a head wound and some bruising for you, he thought caustically, and from a plane crash too. Don't you feel lucky?
The thought raised a derisive snort and he gestured with one hand to the slope, waiting until Rudy had begun the climb before he followed him.
An hour later, he was coming back down again, sweat rolling down his face as he tried to find a secure foothold with Ryerson's weight driving downward against him, hearing Carl's huffing behind him, and the bitten-back and mostly-held-in groans from Walt as each downward step jarred him, even within the soft sling of the makeshift stretcher.
Ahead, he watched Rudy creeping down the rock face, carrying both bags over his shoulders, a rifle in his right hand. Behind him, and moving much more slowly, Charlie protected her arm as well as she could, twisting sideways to slide down the rocks.
His watch had been a casualty of the crash, the arm-rest that had dug at him had smashed the face and he'd left it under the overhang when they'd moved out. As near as he could tell it must have been close to ten o'clock, but with the cloud sitting like a shroud over the mountains, the light was dim and shadowed.
Hanlon said the trail was north-west, along the valley floor and over a stream and then up on the next, lower, ridgeline. At their current pace, he thought they might get there by sundown. If they could cross the stream. If the weather didn't worsen. If nothing else went wrong.
He sighed and shifted his grip on the saplings, moving his foot slowly over the smooth rock and looking for the next secure spot, wishing he could wipe the sweat clear before it soaked into his clothes and froze against his skin.
Flying, he thought darkly. For the birds.
43.75° N, 110.83° W
Castiel stared around the rocks surrounding the crash site in disbelief. He could see the parts of the plane, scattered across the deep hollow he stood in, the scorch marks still evident on the rising side of the rock slabs where the plane had hit and burned.
Had the plane exploded like this on landing, he wondered? He saw an arm, severed and still in the sleeve that had once been attached to a jacket, and he stumbled forward, his senses stretched out. One body, he realised, with a deep shudder of relief. Just one…and not his friend's.
He reached out for the power of Heaven, intending to return to Nevada, and felt the block, the spell that had been laid over this place, holding him cloistered in a miasma of mist and cold and not-really-there.
The firstborn. Dean and the others must have gotten out before the spell had taken hold, but he was trapped on the frigid side of this mountain until the spell was broken or the maker killed. He turned around, moving slowly across the rock. He could find the boundaries, at least, could see if there was a weakness in the rings of illusion and magic laid here.
Teton Ranges, Wyoming
It was just on dusk, Dean thought, when they reached the long dale floor, ground out between the peaks by a glacier, the alluvial dump of fine gravel crunching under their feet. Thin stands of twisted trees gave them some shelter from the icy wind that blew straight down the valley from the north, carrying a breath of snow and ice with it. His head was pounding again, and he could feel a trickle running down behind his ear. Slow and sticky, he was pretty sure it wasn't sweat.
"Trail's on the other side," Rudy said, pointing at the rising slope of the other side of the valley, not far away but almost invisible in the deepening gloom.
Dean nodded, looking around the sparse clearing they'd stopped in. "We'll get there tomorrow. We need to get a fire going, maybe a couple, dig in for the night."
Carl unrolled the long canvas tarpaulin and tied off the corners to the trees surrounding them, angling the slope of the material down to the ground. Dean set Walt's litter down and stretched out and up, trying to relieve the aching stiffness in his arms and shoulders and back, happy he didn't have to carry the end of the litter for at least another eight hours. Most of Walt's weight had been at his end, but he hadn't been prepared to entrust the necessary care of getting down the treacherous slopes to Carl. The incongruity of busting his ass to make sure Walt was carried safely down hadn't escaped him. He shrugged inwardly. When the hunter was back on his feet, and in good health, then he could kill him.
He turned around and walked back a little through the trees, picking up an armload of branches that were scattered across the needle-covered ground. He wasn't sure of what animals might live up here, but decided he didn't want to meet any of them, not tonight.
The two fires were going well, lighting their faces, warming them, drying the cold, damp air around them, when they heard the first long, lonely ululation. Dean straightened from where he'd been lying back against the bag, his eyes meeting Rudy's in a mute question.
"Wolf…but not timber wolf," Rudy answered. "Wrong notes, wrong sound."
A moment later it sounded again, this time joined by another howl, then another. The rising and falling notes were closer the second time, Dean thought. There was the faintest echo, as if the pack had entered a more enclosed space.
He glanced around the clearing and got to his feet, dragging another pile of branches to the other side of the stretched tarp, taking a lit branch from the fire and thrusting it under the pile. Carl and Rudy got up as well, making new fires to either side of the encampment, their gazes flicking around the darkness nervously.
When the fires were going, Dean pulled out the double-barrelled sawn-off for Charlie, and the pump-action for Carl. Both guns were loaded with buck, packed with salt. Rudy picked up his rifle and sat down between two of the fires, checking his pockets for bullets and staring into the black night.
Dean picked up the .30-30 WCF, checking the load and leaving the hammer at half-cock. His father had kept the old lever-action rifle in mint condition, and he'd done the same, there were no worn or loose pieces in it and it would take down a deer at a hundred and seventy-five yards with ease. He moved around to take position between the two fires facing west of north, and set his flashlight down beside him. The light had an effective range of about forty yards, but it would be enough to see the reflectivity in an animal's eyes and give him a target.
The next time the howling sounded, it was obvious the wolves were in the valley. The noise echoed from the narrowed walls only a few hundred yards to the north, muffled and ghostly sounding in the cloud that seemed to press more thickly around them.
He rolled to his knees and flicked on the flashlight, shining the beam in that direction. The moisture in the cloud reflected the light back, lighting up parts of the dense mist in front of him, creating darker shadows to the sides.
"What the fuck—?" Carl's voice was shrill with disbelief as he pulled the trigger on the pump, the gun's crashing retort almost swallowed by the cloud seeping into the camp. Dean swung around, his finger squeezing the trigger as he took in the huge grey chest, thick with fur, the massive blunt head, glowing amber eyes and long, white, pointed teeth, gleaming in the beam of the flashlight.
The wolf burst in between the fires, knocking Carl down and leaping for Charlie, seemingly uninjured by the buckshot rounds Carl had fired at it, or the double blast of buckshot and salt Charlie put into it. The .30-30 sounded quiet and flat, and Dean watched the bullets hitting the creature, knocking it a little to one side with each impact, but having little other effect. What kind of animal could take those hits? The thought flashed through his mind without an answer.
Rudy screamed from behind him and Dean spun around, taking a long stride forward and dragging up a burning branch from the fire beside Hanlon, thrusting into wide open mouth of the monstrous dark brown wolf that stood over him, sagging with relief when it yelped and leapt away from them.
"Fire," he shouted back over his shoulder, handing the burning branch to Hanlon and grabbing another one from the fire. He saw Charlie drop the shotgun and roll hard to the edge of the fire, her face twisting in pain as she pulled out a long branch half-alight and shoved it into the face of the wolf that was right behind her. The grey wolf reared back and fuck, Dean thought with an edge of hysteria, the thing was bigger than a man on its hind-legs, then it had gone, back into the thick cloud and darkness.
"No!"
He turned, seeing Rudy jump to his feet from the corner of his eye, Carl lunging forward into the darkness as Walt's body disappeared ahead of him, the injured hunter screaming. There wasn't time for thought, just reaction, he cleared the fire, swinging the brightly burning torch over his head as he saw the huge tracks, twin furrows in between them, and he was racing over the needles and gravel, the ground dropping, closer to the stream. He could hear them; hear Walt's shrieks, distorted, dissonant in the mist, getting further away at a speed that was impossible. He hesitated for a long moment then turned back, running hard for the camp as he heard more gunfire.
Lovelock, Nevada
The thump against the side of the house was not loud. Ellie was on her feet, moving away from the hall and through the shadows of the dining room as she heard a second, softer thud from the same direction.
She flattened against the exterior wall, lifting the edge of the heavy, dark curtains at the small window and looking obliquely out along the wall. At the far end of the portion of the exterior wall she could see, there was a slight movement. The house formed an inverted corner there, shadowed by the roofline.
She turned away from the wall and walked quickly back to the hall, stepping over the oil line and easing the interior garage door open, slipping through the narrow gap and closing it again silently. No cars stood in the three bays, but shelving lined the walls and she could make the vague outlines of cans of paint, a ladder leaning against one wall, workbenches and coils of rope and wire hanging neatly beside them. The triple car garage had a postern door next to the big roller doors, and she opened it, leaving it ajar as she stepped outside.
The moonlight was fitful as cloud moved slowly across the sky, and she waited, her eyes closed, for her vision to adjust. When she opened them, she could see the outline of the house clearly. Front or back, she wondered? The thump had been from the back.
Working steadily along the wall, keeping within the line of shadow thrown by the wide eaves, she turned the corner and stopped. The outdoor compressor condenser for the home's air-conditioning sat in the corner where she'd seen the movement. Beside it, there was a tall gas cylinder.
Ellie ducked under the level of the window sills, moving fast down the concrete path until she was in the shadows of the corner. She crouched beside the cylinder, seeing the outlet hose leading into the air intake of the condenser. A smaller, aluminium bottle had been screwed into the regulator at the top of the large cylinder. Even in the semi-darkness, she could read the label on the bottle easily enough. Sevoflurane, USP.
Anaesthetic.
On the gas cylinder the label was also clear. N2O. Nitrous oxide.
Fuck.
She unscrewed the bottle and set it on the ground, closing the regulator cock and decoupling the hose into the condenser, ignoring the wash of uneasiness that filled her. How much would it take to knock out everyone in the house? How long?
Getting to her feet, she slid around the corner and into the deeper shadows between the side of the house and the high retention wall behind it, running down the narrow length of the path to the front of the house and stopping where the sharp of the shadow cut across the path. She could see a short section of the road above, between the groves of the trees that shielded the house from the highway. The moonlight picked out the edges of the black four-wheel drive sitting there. The road descended to the house for nearly half-a-mile, she thought vaguely. They'd coasted down the slope, the engine off and their lights off and had taken the same path as she'd just come up to get to the back of the house, unseen, unheard by Steve and Red at the front, or Sam and Baraquiel at the back.
Turning, she ran back along the house, stopping at the tall, narrow, fixed window that let light into the laundry area. She could just make out the bodies, lying on the floor.
Alright, Sam and the Watcher were the closest to the vents, got the full dose as soon as it came into the house, she thought furiously, Steve and Red might still be conscious.
And if they weren't? There was no way she could trap the three in a holy oil trap now. They would be looking for it as soon as they got into the house. How the fuck had they'd known we were here, she wondered? Neither the question nor the answer could help right now, and she pushed it aside. What else? Come on, think, what else?
A shadow moved on the wall inside, and she flattened herself against the exterior wall, backing away from the window slowly. They were inside now. She wasn't sure if they would be able to breach the holy oil fires that held the others or not. Fire was fire. Even holy fire could be damped down if it was deprived of oxygen.
Move faster.
Ducking below the window's level, Ellie ran back around the house, relieved to see that the garage door was still ajar. She slid through the gap and closed the door without a sound, then turned on her heel and strode to the shelves, letting her gaze run over them, looking for anything that might spark an idea. She stopped in front of the long coil of wire.
It was large gauge fencing wire, mild steel. On the floor below was a half a roll of fine gauge steel mesh netting. She thought of the dining room, the picture rail that circled the room at just above eye-level, the lack of furniture around the walls. The charge on the outside couldn't be grounded, she thought, every gap would have to be covered. There was power socket on the wall close by the door. The opposite of the cages Steve and Red had built in the other rooms. It wouldn't be lethal but it might screw with their power, maybe enough to be useful.
She looked along the bench and picked up a pair of pliers lying on the top, sliding them into her jacket pocket. Wire cutters were incorporated under the flat gripping tips. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the roll of netting and the coil of wire and walked back to the door leading to the interior of the house.
Teton Ranges, Wyoming
The wolves were still there. The snarling and other sounds had stopped after an hour, but he could feel them, beyond the light of the fires, listening, scenting them, waiting.
For what, he wondered?
"How many do you think there are?" Charlie looked at him. He shook his head.
"We heard three distinct voices, saw three of them clearly," he said slowly. "Maybe there're just those three. I don't know."
"They're not real, are they?" she asked, blue eyes wide and over-bright against the grime that covered her face. "I mean, not real animals."
He glanced at Rudy, who shook his head. "No. I don't know what they are but what we've got here isn't going to kill them."
"We have to get out of here," Rudy said. "Make a run for the trail."
Dean raised a brow at him. "Running fight, in the dark, in the fog, across terrain we don't know, against monsters we can't kill?"
"We can't just sit and wait here."
"No," he agreed with a quiet exhale. The nephilim had landed in Portland yesterday, they could already be at Forest Edge, or at Winnemucca, by now. He'd lost his phone chasing after Walt and he didn't feel like going to look for it. There was no signal here, anyway. "No, we can't sit here, but we'll wait for dawn where we can cover each other, not try a running fight in the dark."
Carl looked from one to the other. "He's right. We might not have much better mobility in daylight, but we need whatever advantages we can scrape up."
Rudy nodded. The last wolf had left the camp when the snarling had started. Carl had a set of long, deep claw marks across his back from it. They'd thrown wood into the gaps between the fires, making a circle around them.
"You two get some sleep," Dean said to Carl and Charlie. "We'll watch until dawn."
Carl opened his mouth to protest he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, looked at Dean's face and closed it again. Rest, if not sleep, he thought uncomfortably, easing himself down on the hard ground, shivering despite the fires surrounding him as the cold of the gravel seeped through his clothes.
"How much longer till the sun comes up?" Dean asked Rudy when both Carl and Charlie had closed their eyes and were giving at least the appearance of resting.
"Three hours," Rudy answered, twisting his wrist to angle his watch face to the firelight. "The cloud might not lift."
Dean shook his head. "It doesn't matter. They'll come as soon as we move. We'll have to go as fast as we can, but crossing the stream is going to be a bitch."
"Yeah," Rudy thought about it. He wasn't sure how deep the snow would be, out of the shelter of the trees, and the stream would arctic. Just getting wet, they'd lose so much body heat they'd slow down, get clumsy.
"You ever seen things like those before?" Dean asked.
"I've seen wolves like that in encyclopaedias," Rudy said, his voice bitter. "Dire-wolves. Extinct now. Used to be around when the mammoths were big."
"So they were real…once?"
"Yeah," Rudy looked over at him. "That's not what these are, though. Not real animals brought back to life. This is a spell."
"Mmm."
"You don't think so?"
Dean heard a faint thread of defensiveness in the man's voice and rubbed a hand tiredly over his jaw. "Honestly, I have no idea of what this is. Or why anyone—aside from the firstborn—would do it. And if it's the firstborn, I keep asking myself why would they go to all this trouble to kill us, when the storm that brought the plane could've done it, or just leaving us here might still do it."
"Good point," Rudy said, the guarded tone gone.
They watched the darkness beyond the fires in silence for a while, and Dean saw that both Carl and Charlie had really gone to sleep, the shift in their breathing giving them away. They'd need it, he thought, chewing at the corner of his lip as he looked at them.
Rudy poked the fire. "Pierre said you married Ellie Morgan?"
Dean glanced at him. "Yeah."
"Is she happy? Doing okay?" Rudy asked, his gaze on the rifle across his legs.
"Uh, I think so. As much as we can be, considering we're at the front line again," Dean said. He wasn't sure if he wanted to have this conversation or not.
"That's good," Rudy murmured, shooting a fast sideways look at him. "We weren't—it wasn't—I mean, we weren't in love or anything like that."
"Just good friends?" Dean asked, one brow rising.
Rudy laughed, self-consciously. "No. I was trying to forget someone. I think she was too."
"Huh."
"Sorry, I shouldn't've mentioned it," Rudy said with a rushed exhale.
"It's okay," Dean said, noting with some surprise that it was. "She said your mother was a psychic?"
"Yeah." He looked uncomfortable. "Maman could touch anything, tell you all about it."
Dean shivered at the thought of that. Rosie could do that too, they'd discovered. And Marc.
"You must have been trained for hunting as a kid, running a team at twenty-four?" he asked, suddenly not wanting to discuss the topic he'd raised.
Rudy looked at him quizzically. "No, I—my mother and I, we, uh, knew about hunters, but I didn't start until I was eighteen," he said, sounding as if he were choosing his words with care. "My father—uh, my father disappeared the year before, and—well, I found out a few things about him."
"Disappeared?" Dean asked.
"He left," Rudy said bluntly. "I didn't know until a while ago. But he and my mother had a—a falling out, I guess you could call it. She didn't say what it'd been about."
"Sorry."
Rudy shrugged. "Can't do much about your family, right?"
"Was he a hunter?"
"No," Rudy said, staring at the fire. "He's a Watcher."
43.75° N, 110.83° W
Castiel looked down at the tiny gleam on the ground. He crouched and picked up the watch, knowing who it belonged to. The glass face had been cracked, the mechanism behind it crushed. He stared at the leather band. It was intact, indicating it had been removed deliberately, he thought, not torn off.
There were no cracks or slips along the boundaries of the spells that ringed the place. Dean was alive, presumably at least some of the others as well. He couldn't help them. Couldn't help himself. Couldn't help Ellie and Sam with what they were trying to do in Nevada.
He sat down in the shelter of the overhanging rock and exhaled. He hadn't felt this useless since he'd woken in a hospital, feeling pain, and an insect bite that had almost driven him crazy with the desire to scratch it.
He hadn't seen Amaros since Lucifer had been destroyed, in the cavern on the first level of Hell. The Watcher had been cagey about arranging a meeting, but had agreed reluctantly when he'd told him of what the firstborn were planning. Amaros had known the whole story. Had known about the key and the way it would be used. It was important that he got out of here, he thought vaguely. Important that he tell the hunters about the key.
He sat for a long moment, considering that. The importance of it. Then he looked back down at the watch, Amaros and the key and the importance of it forgotten again.
Lovelock, Nevada
Ellie set the wire silently down on the carpet and pulled the pliers from her pocket. The walls and much of the flooring in the house were concrete or tiled. She could distantly hear voices, the firstborn together again, but separated, she hoped, by the holy fire.
Very limited time frame. Get on with it, she told herself. The fencing wire was reasonably malleable and she ran the length around the room several times, using the picture rail, leaving the doorway open, but joining the wires above it and below it. The netting was far more springy, and she thought it would spring back across the door if she left a good flap of it loose at one end, held it back while they entered. The timing would have to be exactly right, and she couldn't figure out how to insulate herself when the time came. But perhaps that was a minor consideration at this point.
She'd expected to hear from Cas, or from Dean, or from someone at the house. But there'd been nothing. She wasn't sure what that meant. Had Cas made it to the crash site? Where were they? She didn't think about the other question. If the crash had been fatal…Cas would be back by now.
The wire and netting mesh formed a loose boundary around the room, joined together, and creating a single closed circuit. She looked at the end of the wire and the held-back gate of mesh carefully. It would close the circuit, once they were in the room. All she had to do was get them in here.
She took a deep breath, thinking of the rough layout of the house Sam had drawn for her, back in Oregon. Two rights and she'd be in the living room. With them. Two lefts to bring them back here. She stepped out through the door, drawing the SIG from the modified shoulder-holster under her jacket and racking the slide. The noise seemed huge in the quiet house. She saw their shadows moving on the wall as she came around the last corner, the handgun already raised and firing.
Teton Ranges, Wyoming
"Run!" Dean ground out, reaching out and grabbing the back of Charlie's jacket, lifting her to her feet. She cried out as her arm banged into his and he ignored it, letting go of her collar and shoving her forward, twisting to the side and swinging the long, lit branch at the wolf that leapt toward him.
On the other side, Rudy and Carl were running as well, slightly ahead of him. Their chests heaved as the cold air bit into their throats and lungs, each breath like dragging in a mouthful of powdered glass. The deep powdery snow clung to them, further soaking their wet clothes, filling boots and making every stride a nightmarish struggle.
They were on the other side of the creek and, to Dean's intense disappointment, the wolves had no problems at all crossing the sluggishly moving water. Another bit of lore proved wrong, he'd thought bitterly as he watched them jump over the narrow waterway.
"Ahead!" Rudy gasped, and Dean turned his head, seeing the dilapidated cabin, dark against the snow banks. "We can make that!"
He bit back the retort that immediately sprang to mind and nodded. He couldn't run like this for much longer and he thought Charlie was going to collapse any minute. It would give them walls to put their backs against, even if nothing else.
The black wolf veered close to him, teeth snapping at the hem of his jacket and he jammed the flaming branch into the eye he could see, feeling a moment of savage satisfaction at the high-pitched yelp.
Looking back at the cabin, he saw Carl reach the stone porch, staggering as he half-lifted Charlie up the step, Rudy a few paces behind him. He was on a slightly different line from the others, and he didn't see the implement buried under the snow, hitting the curving iron at knee height and pitching helplessly over the top of it, his burning branch buried in the drift, snow covering his face as he frantically wiped his eyes clear, the three huge heads getting closer as he tried to scramble backward, tethered to whatever it was under the snow by his boot.
"Dean!" Rudy's shout came from behind him, but he couldn't look, couldn't take his eyes off the glowing amber eyes in front of him. He felt around in the snow surrounding him, feeling a long, flat bar and pulling it free just as the black wolf surged forward.
The iron bar broke free of the snow and struck the wolf on its downward arc. Dean flinched back from the gaping mouth as the bar touched its throat and blinked as the wolf disappeared. He looked at the bar that he still held up, the decades-old rust coating his hand and crumbling from the edges.
Iron.
He twisted his foot and freed his boot, rolling onto his knees and swinging the bar toward the grey wolf on his left. The wolf leapt and the bar touched its chest and it disappeared.
"Iron!" he yelled to no one in particular, spinning around to see Rudy wielding a long iron poker like a baseball bat, flat and horizontal to the ground, aimed for the grey wolf's head.
Lovelock, Nevada
Ellie turned and ran, hearing the pounding footsteps behind her. She had no idea if she'd hit any of them, hadn't really seen their faces. Her feet skidded on the slick tiles as she made the last corner and she flung her arm out for balance, diving into the dining room and rolling backward to the wall beside the doorway. The smack of soles on the hard, tiled floor disappeared as the nephilim ran past her and onto the carpeted floor, cannoning into each other as they stopped to look for her. She barely saw them, counted three pairs of legs, let the mesh spring back with its inorganic memory of the tightness of the roll, the bare steel wire in her hand.
The live socket was beside the door, behind the netting, and she jammed the free end of the wire into the slot. The world vanished as the A/C current coursed through the wire she held, and crackled through her, disrupting the electrical impulses in her brain, contracting every muscle to a stone-like rigidity, stopping her heart.
43.75° N, 110.83° W
Castiel blinked rapidly and stood up, the fuzziness that had overtaken his mind gone. He reached out for the power of Heaven and felt it flowing into him, filling him up.
The cloud and mist that had wrapped the mountain peak was clearing, dissipating into tattered shreds as the wind freshened against the side of his face and he heard Dean's voice, bellowing from the valley below. He looked down and saw them, far up the valley, small black dots against the snow.
He disappeared and the echo of beating wings muttered from the hard rock faces.
Teton Ranges, Wyoming
"What the fuck?!" Rudy stared at the space where the wolf had been a second ago. It hadn't been the iron bar this time; it had disappeared before he'd finished the swing.
"Did you see where it went?" He looked over at Dean, who shook his head.
Carl stepped onto the porch, looking around. "The mist is breaking up."
Castiel appeared in front of Rudy. The hunter stumbled backward. Dean looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"Cas, you here to rescue us?"
"Yes."
He nodded, gesturing to the cabin behind him. "We could use a little angel TLC first."
"Of course," Cas looked at Rudy's nose and eyes and reached out, touching him lightly on the forehead.
Lovelock, Nevada
The sound of wings was loud in the silent house. Rudy, Charlie and Carl looked around in astonishment, Dean the only one used to the angel's instantaneous mode of transport. They were standing in a wide hallway next to a broad square archway. The living room, lit by the rings of holy fire, was to their left. Behind them, the hall ran down to the front door, and Carl started when he saw Steve and Red lying in the shadows.
"What happened?" He ran down the hall, crouching beside them, his hand going to the carotid artery in Steve's neck to check for a pulse automatically.
Dean turned to look at them and felt a jolt through his nervous system at the sight of their unconscious bodies. He spun around and walked fast down the hall in the other direction.
"Rudy, Charlie, check the other rooms," he barked out harshly. Cas had told him about Ellie's plan in the wreck of a cabin. She was here, somewhere, and Sam.
He stopped as he came around the last corner to the dining room doorway. The doorway was barricaded with wire mesh, Maluch lying on the table in the centre of the room, Kitra and Chuma standing by the doorway, looking down at the figure who lay motionless on the floor, several feet from the doorway.
"Ellie?" Dean accelerated down the hall, dropping to his knees beside her. He saw the black line across her fingers, burned deeply into the flesh where the wire had touched. Her skin was dead white, freckles standing out clearly over her nose and in the small amber constellations over her cheeks. He rested his fingertips against her neck, registering the pulse beating arrhythmically in her artery. But beating, he thought, dragging in a breath.
"She electrocuted herself when she trapped us," Kitra said in a low voice. "The power threw her."
"CAS!"
"I'm here," the angel said, standin beside him. He touched Ellie's forehead and Dean watched the burn line disappear from her hand, colour return to her cheeks, the bruised-looking shadows around her eyes vanish. Under his fingers, curled around her wrist, he felt her heartbeat strengthen, become steady.
The angel nodded and got to his feet, looking at the nephilim. "I can heal your companion, but I will not unless you agree to join the others in the circles of holy fire."
Kitra's eyes narrowed for a moment, and she felt Chuma's hand on her arm. She released her breath in a long, slow exhale and nodded agreement.
Forest Edge, Oregon
The big living room was lit only by the fire on the hearth, the air warm and the half-moon of light enclosing them. Dean leaned back against the arm of the sofa, his legs stretched out to either side of Ellie, lying in front of him, her back against his chest, his arms wrapped around her.
"He said his father is a fallen angel," he said, into her hair, his gaze on the flickering firelight.
"Did he say which one?" Ellie tilted her head to one side, her temple resting against the flat curve below his collarbone.
"No." He looked down at her. "Does it matter?"
"I don't know," she admitted, unsure of how important it was. Cas might know, or one of the other Watchers.
"What now?" Dean ducked his head, his cheek resting against hers, his arms tightening fractionally around her. He inhaled her scent, felt the smoothness of her skin, listened to her, watched her, held her…the need was a reaction, he knew, to what had happened. Knowing what it was didn't stop it or lessen it, though.
He felt her ribs lift and fall under his arms. "Now it's time for the main performance," she said. "The Watchers can meet up with the angels and do whatever it is they're going to do to convince the firstborn that Heaven is highly overrated."
"You sound…cynical," he said, his tone wry.
Ellie smiled, her nose wrinkling up a little. "None of them are objective; they all operate on emotion, even Michael and Iophiel. I thought Baraquiel would be able to show them, but now I'm not so sure."
"Not our problem anymore, right?"
"Let's hope not," she said, closing her eyes and relaxing back against him.
