Dean was scowling at the shotgun shells he'd finished packing with phoenix ashes when Piper, Sam, and Bobby walked into the study. When Piper came around the desk, he automatically turned in his chair and held an arm out so she could settle into his lap. He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her close, still glaring at the desk.
"How you doing in here?" Sam asked carefully.
"Five shells," Dean growled. "That's how I'm doing."
Piper picked one up to examine it. "Well, it's more than we had before."
Dean continued to glare. "Maybe."
Sam frowned. "Maybe?"
Dean picked up a pinch of the ashes he had left over from the shells and rubbed them onto his arm. "I had a little mishap a few minutes ago, and look." The ashes had no more effect on him than if he'd taken some from the fireplace and done the same. "This stuff is supposed to burn the shit out of Eve, but it doesn't even give me a sunburn."
"Huh," Bobby said thoughtfully. "Lore says it works."
"Well, maybe it's like iron or silver," Piper inserted. "It hurts them, but not us."
Dean sighed. "Maybe, but fat lot of good it does until we find the bitch."
Bobby sighed, too. "I'm looking, but I'm thinking maybe it's time one of you," he nodded to the couple behind the desk, "made a call."
Dean frowned. "Why has it always gotta be one of us, huh? It's not like Cass lives in-"
"Dean," Piper said severely, probably sensing that Dean was about to get crude. "I'll call him."
Piper closed her eyes, and while she prayed (silently, which was something Dean almost never did), he admired her pretty face, the way her eyelashes made little spikes of shadow along her cheeks in the sunshine.
A rustle of feathers, then, "Hello, Piper."
Dean looked, and Piper opened her eyes, to see Castiel standing behind Bobby and Sam.
Piper smiled sunnily. "Hey, Cass."
"Have you made any progress in locating Eve?"
Dean frowned when the angel jumped right to business, but Bobby was already shaking his head. "We were gonna ask you about that."
"No, I've looked, but she's hidden from me. She's hidden from all angels."
"Awesome," Dean snarled.
"You know," Sam said thoughtfully, "what we really need is an inside man."
Piper tilted her head. "Meaning?"
"Something with claws and sympathy."
"Like, a friendly monster?" When Sam shrugged, Dean frowned again. "Those are in short supply these days, don't you think?"
"We've met one or two," Piper said with a nod. "That's a good idea."
As they landed in Grants Pass, Oregon, the place where the vampire Lenore had told them that Eve was, Piper tried to let go of the anger at Castiel.
When Lenore had suggested that they kill her, Piper had been horrified. Lenore hadn't done anything wrong, besides to live her life and try to be good. Piper had understood that Lenore had messed up, had killed a girl, but she was trying, and they could help. That's what the goddamn panic room was for!
Instead, Cass had smote her without a second thought.
Granted, he had looked remorseful, once he'd seen the upset on Piper's face, but she was struggling with forgiveness for a moment. It had been a callous move, and given more time, Piper felt confident that she would have been able to convince Lenore to live.
Now there was another life lost senselessly.
She dragged herself back to the present as Dean spoke, glaring around them. "Well, I was expecting more Zombieland, less Pleasantville."
She looked around. It was kind of a white-picket area, with the sun shining through healthy trees. There was a dog barking in the distance, and a group of well-dressed children riding their bikes on the sidewalks.
"Just because it looks quiet don't mean it is," Bobby said ominously. "Especially if she's got a clue that we're coming."
"Well, if she is here, I'm glad we've got Smitey McSmiterton on our squad." Dean clapped a hand on Cass' shoulder. "Where do we start?"
"I'm gonna need a computer," Bobby said, starting off in a seemingly random direction.
Dean was sitting with his arm around the back of the bench behind Piper, trying not to laugh out loud at the stare-down Sam and Bobby were having.
"All right," Bobby said. "I finally got the police database, no thanks to this." He gestured to the tablet in his hand. "I asked for a computer."
Sam rolled his eyes. "It is a computer."
"No, a computer has buttons."
Dean looked down and grinned at Piper. She smiled back, and he was relieved to see that some of the shadows in her eyes were gone. He knew she'd been upset when Cass had killed Lenore, hell, he'd been upset when Cass had killed Lenore, but not to the extent Piper had been.
Dean knew, from late-night conversations, that Piper was worried about Castiel. She was worried about the war, of course, and about him being hurt or worse ("Dean, if he died, no one would bother to tell us. We wouldn't even know."). She was also worried, though, about him losing some of the humanity he'd fought so hard for.
They had seen it in the Impala after Sam had gone into the pit, that Castiel had been harder than he had been in a long time. With the way he'd smoked Lenore, it looked like they were maybe returning to the same problem. Dean resolved to keep an eye on the angel, and if he stepped too far out of line, he'd pull him aside and talk to him. Piper was important to Cass, too, he figured the angel would listen to reason if it was about her.
"Can I get y'all anything else?"
The waitress yanked Dean from his thoughts and he smiled blandly at her. "No, we're good, thanks."
As soon as she was gone, they all turned their attention back to Bobby. "Have you found anything?" Piper asked.
"Oh, nickel and dime stuff, nothing weird. Basically a dead end." He looked up at Cass. "You think Vampira was lying?"
"I'll search the town," Cass intoned. "Give me a moment."
Unfortunately, despite the good exit line, nothing happened. Dean frowned. "Cass, we can still see you."
"Yes, I'm still here." The angel was frowning. "Something's wrong."
Piper sat up. "What? Are you stuck?"
"I'm blocked. Powerless."
"You're joking," Dean said incredulously.
"Something in this town is, uh, it's affecting me. I assume it's Eve."
"So, wait, Mom's making you limp?"
Dean was met with three separate glares, which was a new record for him. "Figuratively, yes," Cass bit out.
"How?"
"I don't know, but she is."
Dean groaned. "Well, that's great, because without your power, you're basically just a baby in a trenchcoat." At that, Piper elbowed him in the side, hard. "Ouch, woman!"
She was already ignoring him in favor of reaching out to place her hand on top of Cass'. "Don't listen to him, okay? You're not useless. We still need you."
Before Dean could protest, Bobby interrupted them. "I got something here, maybe. Had to go federal to get it. Call went out from the local office to the CDC last night."
Sam frowned. "About what?"
"A Dr. Silver called in an illness he couldn't identify. Patient's a twenty-five-year-old African American, name 'Ed Bright.'"
"Well, that's not a lot to go on."
"Well, it's our only lead, so-"
"So beggars can't be choosers, right?" Dean snarked. "I get it. All right, let's finish up."
Piper followed Dean and Cass as they approached Dr. Silver's office. A woman was standing outside, locking the door behind her.
"Excuse me!" She turned to look at Dean. "Hi, uh, is Dr. Silver in today?" He pointed to Cass. "My friend is very sick."
"I have a, uh, painful burning sensation," Cass said as stoically as possible. Piper schooled her features to make sure she didn't laugh out loud.
The woman made a face. "Uh, oh. Well, he's out. Sorry."
"Do you happen to know where he is?" Piper asked.
"He hasn't called in." She looked at Cass. "You might want to find yourself some ointment." She walked off to her car.
Dean was frowning. "What kind of doctor calls the CDC and then goes AWOL the very next day?"
"Well," Piper said cheerfully. "Let's find out, shall we?" She pulled out her lock pick set and started to fiddle with the door.
"Is this going to take a long time?" Castiel asked.
Before she could snark back at him, Piper looked down and noticed a drop of dark liquid on the ground just outside the door. She leaned down and touched the drop with her finger. Blood.
"What is it?" Cass asked.
Without responding, she led them to the shed that was just next to the doctor's office. The padlock on the door was covered in blood. She motioned to Cas, who stepped forward and broke it off. When they looked inside, she wrinkled her nose at the sight of the body wrapped in plastic.
Dean leaned down to unwrap it a little to reveal their Patient Zero, Ed.
"Gross," Piper remarked as Dean covered him back up.
"It's the patient Ed Bright," Cass said, a bit unnecessarily.
"Well, what kind of doctor calls the CDC, then stashes the gooey corpse in the shed?"
Cass looked as lost as Piper felt. "I don't understand what's happening here."
"Well, before we do anything, we're going to need to burn the body," Piper said firmly.
They met up with Sam and Bobby outside of Ed's house. After exchanging all learned information, Dean was frowning again. "So we've got a missing doctor and an oozing patient."
"The plot thickens," Sam said, his brow furrowed.
"Well, let's go talk to Ed's roommates, see what they have to say."
Before any of them could move, Dean felt a hand on his elbow. "Does Ed Bright have a brother?" Cass asked.
"Uh, no," Bobby replied. "Why?"
Cass pointed. "Then that's not his twin."
Then they all looked, there was a man next to the window of the house who looked precisely like Ed. Dean scowled. "Shit."
Sam was frowning, too. "So, what, shifter?"
Bobby shrugged. "I got no idea what we're looking at."
"All right," Piper said finally. "Dean and I are going in. You three stay out here and watch the house. If anything comes out, shoot it."
"Best guess, silver bullets." Dean added.
Cass looked as close to nervous as Dean had ever seen him look. "I'm fairly unpracticed with firearms."
Dean pointed at him. "You know who whines? Babies."
"Dean Winchester," Piper scolded.
"What?"
When they walked in, Piper had to cover her nose to shield herself as much as possible from the smell. There were several dead men scattered around the front room and foyer area, all of whom looked like Ed Bright.
Dean made a disgusted noise behind her. "Okay, don't touch anything, kitten."
She was about to assure him that her touching something wasn't a concern when one of the "bodies" started to move. "Dean! Back here!" She hurried over and knelt beside the man. "Hey, hey, hey," she said soothingly as he coughed. "What is it? Talk to me."
"Ed, Ed," Dean tried. "What's going on?"
The man frowned. "What? I'm not Ed." Before he could elaborate, he coughed harshly and groaned.
Piper carefully pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open to the driver's license. The name said, "Marshall Todd."
Marshall groaned again. "What's wrong with me?"
"Shh, you're okay," Piper cooed. "You're okay, you're okay, all right? I'm gonna get you some help."
Marshall reached up and clasped onto her sleeve, making Piper's heart clench in sympathy. "Do we… Do I look like Ed?" he asked desperately.
"Shh, no, no," she soothed, instinctively wanting to comfort him, "You have a fever, okay? You're hallucinating, but you're gonna be okay."
"Marshall?" His fevered gaze swung to Dean, who was clearly also trying to be soothing. "Hey, buddy. What happened here?"
"Am I gonna die?" the man on the ground whispered.
"No," Piper said firmly. "No, but you're pretty sick, and we need you to talk to us so we can make sure no one else gets sick, too, okay?"
"Ed," he spluttered out. "Ed was feeling bad so I took him to the doctor." Another hacking cough, then, "And now I think we're all sick."
"Before you got sick," Piper asked, itching to run her hands through his hair, but knowing it was a bad idea. "Before Ed got sick, did you go anywhere or do anything?"
"Some bar."
"A bar? What bar?" Dean asked.
"Eight Street."
"And did anything happen at the bar? Did you see anything? Or meet anyone?"
"A girl." He was fading fast.
"A girl? What happened?"
"A girl in white." Marshall's eyes rolled up in the back of his head.
"Good, you're doing so well, Marshall. What did the girl in white do? What did she do to Ed?" There was no response, and Piper sighed. "Fuck."
She stood and they walked out of the house by silent agreement.
"I don't get it," Dean said with a frown. "A bunch of regular Joes wake up shifters? What the fuck?"
"Shifters usually run in families. This looks like… An infection." Piper looked over at Dean. "You didn't touch anything, right?"
"Well, I'm gonna bathe in Purell, but no, I'm good."
They met with the other three on the sidewalk again. "Okay, so he said they met a girl at a bar on Eight street," Piper informed them.
"Gotta be Eve," Dean finished.
"But why would she do this?" Cass asked, head tilted.
"Mommy monster," Bobby shrugged. "Gotta make more."
"No, I mean, Cass is right," Piper protested. "If she's aiming to make a shifter army, why make one that's sick?"
"And gooey and dying," Dean added helpfully.
Bobby shrugged again. "Add that to the pile of 'Shit That Don't Make Sense.'"
Piper sighed. "Well, let's hit the bar, then."
**Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies and keeps me going.
**Sorry about the delay in update! We've just been so busy with the holidays.
**You may notice some formatting changes going on, too, especially if you're a rereader. Starting at Ch. 1, I'm going through and editing/cleaning up the whole story.
