Jack thought Dean was driving like an old woman. And he said so.
Repeatedly.
Dean threw Jack a look that was somewhere between a sympathetic glance and a glare via the rearview mirror.
He took a deep breath, exchanging a look with Sam, who just nodded. "Jack, we're going as fast as we can, man. We've seen at least six shadow people beside the road in the last five miles. And the last one threw rocks. Shadow people who can affect matter aren't something we've seen before. If we're not careful we'll wind up … Not being able to help Mac. Okay?"
Cas gripped Jack's shoulder until he turned to look at him. "He is alive Jack. He is not well, necessarily, but I do not sense any injury that is beyond repair. We are nearly there."
He nodded to reinforce his words. Jack Dalton was the strangest combination of cold hard edges and soft, warm vulnerability that Cas had ever encountered, even more so than Dean. "You're sure?" Jack asked, his voice almost hoarse with tension and his hands flexing like they wanted to grip weapons he knew would do them no good against an enemy that was not alive in any way he understood.
Cas nodded. "Jack, this is not one of your missions. I am with you. I am an angel of the Lord. Anything he has suffered, I will heal. I promise you."
Jack nodded, but didn't speak. Sam turned in his seat. "Um … Jack … I know you're trying, but you've got to get on top of what you're feeling. If what Mac found was accurate, you're actually feeding her with where your head is at right now."
"I know, I know," Jack grumbled, running both hands over his face, then leaning forward to rest his head with the flats of his hands pressing against his eyes. "Mac does this thing … he was an explosives tech when I met him, see … He doesn't even realize he's doing it I don't think. But when he's defusing something he repeats to himself over and over, 'no feelings about the bomb, no feelings about the bomb' and even when he's not doing it out loud, you can tell he's thinking it. Like, he's thinking a million other things too, but … It seems to work."
Cas smiled slightly. "Mac is very good at turning his brain into whatever he needs it to be. Sometimes it is just a calculator, sometimes, a super computer. And sometimes it is a white noise machine. Or a short wave radio for calling angels."
Then Cas chuckled. The idea seemed to amuse him greatly. Jack asked, "What?"
Cas just shook his head. "More often than not, his brain is all of those things at once, Jack. No wonder other people are constantly surprised by him. I think perhaps it is something only you have noticed. It took me some time to notice it, and I can read his mind."
Jack sat back up, smiling almost against his will. "Yeah, he's unique, that's for sure. Never seen a situation that got the best of him either …" He paused, realizing what Cas had done. "Thanks, Cas. I needed that."
"You are very welcome, Jack. I will tell you, the anger that is the undercurrent of your thoughts could protect you for now, protect Mac, just like he uses his old friend's voice to protect himself when there is a bomb or other danger and he needs to think. It is the emotion that is closest to your own training in denying your human feelings."
Jack nodded. That made all kinds of sense. While he presented as just cool as a cucumber on missions, what he actually usually felt was pissed off that they found themselves in danger once again. The only time he didn't feel much of anything was behind his scope, looking down the barrel at a target that had it coming.
Cas frowned.
Sam was still looking at them and asked, "What is it, Cas?"
Cas listened for a moment. "Mac is telling me … She is sending … the children out against us … Oh, this is not good at all."
"Children?" Dean asked, looking at Cas in the mirror and then glancing over his shoulder to verify the depth of worry he saw in the angel's expression.
Jack was already looking at Cas with growing horror, as though he knew what the angel was going to say. In reality, Jack was just overwhelmed with the enormity of trying to keep a lid on his feelings, to tamp down on his thoughts about the situation Mac was in, and the idea of kids being involved in the situation was just the cherry on top of the poisoned pie of having to eat all that at once.
Cas nodded slowly, carefully reviewing the picture Mac thought at him with such detailed and well-contained horror. "I've heard of this before, certainly. The children are not strictly possessed, La Llorona is simply controlling their minds. But it makes them as strong as demons if she lets them be. She subverts all their thoughts, but their bodies are just vulnerable human bodies. These children live. If we are not careful, and we encounter them in a fight, we could be responsible for their deaths."
"Jesus," Jack and Dean both mumbled simultaneously. Then Dean added. "We should be coming up on that cave if we read the map right … Cas, you gettin' any sense of how far off …"
"Dean!" Cas exclaimed with wide eyes, looking out the windshield.
Caught in the headlights, spanning the entire narrow dirt road, were something like ten small children, with linked hands, looking at the oncoming car with blank expressions. Dean hit the brakes, but skidded toward them on loose gravel. Without any other choice, he instinctively steered the car off the road to protect those kids.
He promptly hit a tree, jarring everyone in the car, and swearing a string of half-sensical curses about weeping women, and demons, and cousins and their genius partners, and angels, and everything else he could wedge between blush-worthy language. "You alright?" Sam asked him, unbuckling his seatbelt and grabbing his bag.
"No," Dean growled. "And neither is Baby." He started climbing out of the car, rubbing his head where he'd smacked it off the steering wheel.
"Maybe if you ever wore your seatbelt," Sam mumbled, climbing out too.
The car wasn't badly off. They could fix it with no difficulty and it was still clearly roadworthy. Sam was a lot more concerned about the line of kids who were still standing with their hands linked. They hadn't really moved when Dean nearly mowed them down. They were looking in the direction of the car now though. One girl, with perfect blunt-cut white blond hair, released the hands on either side of her and stepped toward them.
"Like Children of the goddamned Corn," Jack said under his breath, leaning against the car for a second when he saw the glowing whites of the child's eyes.
"You need to go," she said in a flat, menacing voice.
"We can't do that, sweetheart," Dean said, like he thought he was just talking to a little girl of seven or eight instead of the avatar for a primitive goddess.
"Well, now," Jack interjected, at least a little proud of himself for how natural he sounded. "We can go, we definitely can once we have everyone together; but see, our friend is here, too. And until he's with us, you're stuck with us, honey."
Jack didn't manage to sound like he was talking to a kid. His statement took on a hard edge and the child actually took a step back, cocking her head at him like she was confused.
"You are not suffering. Tell me why."
He strode several steps closer before Cas's hand on his arm stopped him from getting within the child's reach. He felt Sam and Dean flank them, too. "Because I'm too angry that you took him to feel much of anything else right now."
Dean and Sam started to move off, and out of the corners of his eyes, Jack could see they were trying to set up for an exorcism. They knew it might not work since these kids weren't possessed in the strictest sense of the word, but it was worth a shot.
A small boy, this one with dark hair and a tiny, flute-like voice, joined the girl. "You are supposed to suffer, to worry. That is your purpose."
"Sorry, kids," Dean said from behind Jack. "He's not the one who's going to suffer."
Dean and Sam started murmuring the words for an exorcism.
"Nah," Jack said taking another step toward the kids. "I'm not going to suffer, and neither is my friend."
"Oh, no?" the little girl asked. She smiled at them.
Jack froze.
A moaning wail of unfathomable pain reached their ears and it became a screaming crescendo very quickly.
Cas gripped Jack's elbow firmly, not letting him advance further. "Sam, Dean, you are not going to be successful with that spell. Allow me to driver her out of these children. Then we can retrieve Mac."
Cas had to practically force Jack behind himself, but he took a step toward the children once that was accomplished. "I can help you," he said patiently. "You belong at home with your families."
"Their pain is delicious," the little girl said with a sneer.
Cas took another careful step.
With no warning whatsoever, the little girl raised her hand to her mouth and tore at it savagely with her teeth.
Cas paused. "Do not harm this child further," he warned.
This time the little girl's smile was bloody. She dipped the fingers of her uninjured hand into the blood.
Another chilling cry echoed from behind the kids.
"Mac!" Jack shouted, his efforts to just stay angry beginning to falter.
The bloody smile grew.
She drew a familiar symbol on the pale pink front of her dress. "Bye-bye, angel."
Her good hand opened and closed in a childish wave and her bloodied hand pressed to the symbol.
"No!" Sam and Dean shouted together. A shockwave rippled outward from her, flattening everyone there, including the kids.
Jack was the first one to pick himself up, shaking his head to clear it. "Cas? Cas!" he yelled, thinking Cas was probably the best hope he had of getting Mac home in one piece.
"No good, dude," Dean said, getting back to his feet and helping Sam up. "She just banished him. Hard saying when he'll be able to make it back. Or if he won't get distracted by some crap in Heaven."
The brothers helped Jack to his feet. Another pained scream came from the cave they could now see in the moonlight. This time Jack couldn't identify the voice as Mac's. There was too much anguish in it.
Regardless of the shouts of the Winchesters, Jack started to take off at a run toward the cave. Compassion stopped him at the line of children scattered on the ground. They were starting to stir, and Jack saw when the first one opened its eyes that they were no longer glowing with the foreign invader's power.
The first to sit up was a little boy who immediately started to wail, "I want my mommy! Mommy, mommy, where are you?"
Jack dropped down into a squat next to the child. "Hey, there. It's okay, kiddo. We'll get you your mommy. I promise … Dean, Sam!" The Winchesters arrived at his side a second later. "One of you call the cops and emergency services. One of you come with me. I don't give a good goddamn which one does what," he said curtly. "If we don't have Cas we need backup."
Sam began, "Jack, calling the cops before it's all over is a bad …"
Jack stood, cutting him off. He found that none of the panic he'd been feeling before, even that which he'd been carefully concealing under anger was present anymore. Everything looked and felt perfectly clear, just like it did when he was looking down a scope.
"I don't care. We are going to need an ambulance, hell, more than one, and somebody is gonna have to find out who these poor kids belong to." There was another scream. Jack's jaw hardened. "And that kid isn't gonna wait anymore for help. I'm goin' after Mac. You do what you think you have to, but there better be help here when I get him out."
"I've got this," Sam said with a nod, pulling out his cell phone and sitting down on the ground so the little boy who was still sobbing for his mother could climb into his lap.
Dean gave a short nod, looking down at Sam in the middle of the group of kids, all just starting to wake up. Yeah, this was much more of a Sammy situation. Dean reflected, he probably wasn't the greatest with kids if Sam's comments about his half-assed parenting were any indication. Sam on the other hand seemed to have a gift.
"I've got your back." Dean affirmed
"Good," he nodded and headed toward the cave, drawing his weapon, not necessarily because he thought it would be useful, but because it calmed him to hold it.
Dean followed close behind, getting out the high-pressure water gun full of holy water that Mac had crafted before he disappeared.
When they reached the mouth of the cave a few moments later, it erupted in blue flames. They heard a distinctly inhuman scream.
"Mac!" Jack called out, hoping the scream hadn't been his partner's.
"Jack!" he heard over the roar of the fire. Mac's voice sounded weak but entirely his own.
They couldn't see inside to confirm, but no matter how rough the kid's voice sounded, from the other sounds coming from behind the fire, Mac had somehow managed to break free, and all hell was breaking loose.