Chapter 9: White and Lies

"Twenty-three and forty-three make sixty-six, but the question is, sixty-six what?" Sam muttered as the brothers rode the elevator up through the center's many floors. At the moment the ascending box was empty, the last other occupant having left six floors before to go to the records room. The interior of the small rapidly climbing box was unlike any of the other elevators the two had been in before, which to be honest wasn't that large a pool to compare given the infrequent nature of hunts in cities. The walls were all a perfectly polished stainless steel which was as smooth and brilliant as a mirror. The floor was a single solid piece of material-tile probably, given the color, but it was difficult to tell what the pinkish substance truly was; and the ceiling was similar to the walls with the exception of a hatch that led out in case of an emergency. The main thing that distinguished this elevator from others that they'd been in wasn't any of this, it was the panel that allowed selection of floors.

Like most of the technology that the center possessed the elevator seemed close enough to what the brothers were used to that they could understand it, but something about it just wasn't quite right. The array of buttons made sense-a series of simple circles labeled with the floor number (L through 68), but there was also an additional set of buttons underneath that neither brother understood the purpose of. They ranged from an nondescript symbol vaguely resembling an A, a 1/2, and a single remaining button with no markings at all. The white button, the third and final of the strange additional row, was smooth and slightly more raised than the others. It looked like it was made of a different material than the others, but it was hard to guess what that might be.

Some of the other agents in the elevator had pressed the first two when selecting their floors, but even then it didn't seem to change the appearance when they departed. Dean figured that they'd eventually figure it out, or at least have someone explain it, but for the time being he didn't want to experiment-given how they'd been warned multiple times by Board that certain floors were "extraordinarily dangerous". "I don't know, but whatever those 66 things are, I have a feeling it isn't good."

When the doors opened to the 37th floor the two walked out and continued in relative silence as they thought about the events of the case. Cas appeared a moment later in the center of the hall in front of them. "I apologize for not appearing sooner, there was some difficulty in discussing the matter with my brethren, they were not convinced of my assertions."

"It's okay Cas, we're just glad to have you back." Dean said as the angel began walking between the brothers.

The two men continued in their silent ruminations until they entered R's office. " So, how'd it go in Virginia?" R asked as he poured himself a glass of what Sam assumed was red wine from a carafe.

The taller Winchester involuntarily grimaced as he tried to keep his mind clear of the totality of his actions in Jacob's Creek, "We took care of the zombies. It was a necromancer who was being influenced by a demon pretending to be her dead husband." He paused, "There was something else though. The demon said something about there being 66 of something and how him raising the dead was 23 of 66."

The angel suddenly appeared ashen. Dean blinked, making sure he was entirely confident in what he was seeing. Never before had he or Sam seen Cas emote this outwardly, and given the look of near terror on his face something was not good.

R was also seemingly taken aback as he exhaled deeply and looked down at his glass, "To my knowledge there is only one thing that hell is concerned about that has 66 parts-"

"The 66 seals." Cas muttered.

"66 seals to what?" Dean asked, anxiously looking between the two and feeling in no part terrified on being out of the loop.

"The 66 seals are the locks on Lucifer's cage." R stated as he took a long swig of his glass, "They are metaphorical, with each seal being one step closer to freeing Lucifer and allowing him to begin the end of days."

"So, wait, how the hell are they already a third of the way through the list?!" Sam sputtered, "Lucifer's army has only been topside for a month!"

"A month of complete freedom to break any seal they please. Due to our ignorance of the situation they exploited the lack of opposition and worked to get as much done as possible as they could." R stood up and pulled a book off the second shelf from the end behind him. He placed a dark green leather bound book on the table and flipped it open. "Seal 543: The dead shall rise from their graves and destroy their living blood."

"Wait, did you just say 543? I thought there were only 66 seals." Dean wrung his hand through his hair.

"There are 666 seals to choose from. They only need to break 66 of them to be successful in releasing Lucifer." Cas replied, "But this should not have happened. A righteous man must be broken in hell in order for the first seal to be undone. You two are the only ones left who could be…" He paused, realization present in his face as he immediately turned to Sam, "How did your father die?"

Sam was silent as the angel stared deep at him. Dean looked at his brother for confirmation, "He was killed by a werewolf, right?"

Sam averted his gaze before softly replying, "No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"Dad wasn't killed by a werewolf. He was attacked by hellhounds."

"Hellhounds? Wait, why would hellhounds be after dad-he'd never make a deal with a demon." Dean shook his head trying to make sense of what he was hearing, "Sammy, if you're hiding something you need to tell me."

"Dad made a deal to bring me back. Something went wrong, really wrong… It was supposed to be a simple exorcism when all of a sudden the guy's eyes turned yellow and he started talking like he knew me, then next thing I know I'm in some old mining town in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other people and the demon telling us that only one of us could survive. It turned into a bloodbath. I almost made it out, but I didn't. When I came back I was in the back of the Dodge. I found out he summoned a crossroads demon and it gave him a year for my life. We tried to save him, but we couldn't."

Dean was stone faced and silent. It was nearly a minute before he spoke, "All these years you've been lying to me about his death. You told me he was killed in a freak attack. You knew when he was going to die and didn't even bother writing me a letter so I could try and see my father one last time before he got mauled to ribbons."

"Dean, I'm sorry, he made me promise to keep it a secret. He-"

Dean shook his head and pulled out a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lighting it as he scowled at his own reflection in the shimmering glass of Sam's lenses. "Fuck you. I don't care if the world is ending, I don't want to see your face ever again. I can't trust you. What else are you hiding Sam? Huh?! I don't want to know." He extinguished the white stick of tobacco on Sam's lapel leaving a black burn mark. "R, I'm willing to keep working on this, but not with him. I'm gonna leave before I end up bloodying my knuckles on the worthless lying sack of shit who used to be my brother." And with that Dean slammed the door, leaving Sam staring blankly at the rectangle.