Sam had to stretch his legs a little to keep up with Milanka as she almost ran through the house and into the backyard. "Milanka, tell me what's going on. Why are you afraid of my brother?"

"Wait, please wait." They burst into the backyard. Sam watched as Milanka yelled at the few people in the yard, waving her arms.

"Go! Set up the table. Quick." She switched into a Slavic language and shouted something else. She turned on her heel, put her hands on her hips, and glared at Sam.

"Why did you bring him here? We do not need trouble!"

Sam looked at her a moment in surprise. This girl barely came up to his waist and yet she looked like she was going to attack him. She was fearless. No wonder Dean liked her.

"Tell me why my brother being here would be trouble."

"Aloviti. Trouble follows him now. He is not hearing, yes, deaf? She could have done more, worse to him." She took a breath to continue but Sam interrupted her.

"What the Ala did was bad enough!"

"And he will do things now, bad things." She stopped in her tirade for a moment, and eyed him speculatively. She looked away long enough to shout at a young man, who was clutching what Sam guessed were the knife, axe, bread, and salt.

The man stared at Sam wide eyed, then looked at Milanka.

"Разве это мужчина?"

"Nyet! Run!"

"где он?"

"Not here, just go!" She turned back to Sam, squinting up at him. "How do you know of the Ala?"

"That doesn't matter. One of you brought her here, called her, a few months ago. Why did she change my brother?"

"No one brought her here!"

"Someone had to, Milanka. The Ala – she should be on the plains of Russia, Serbia, Siberia … not on the coast of North Carolina. It's not the first time we've seen something like this," he said, remembering an Ethiopian crocatta in Ohio and Japanese jiang shi in Colorado. "She couldn't have crossed the ocean on her own."

"No, no one would have brought her."

Sam shouted, "But she's here!" He stopped, willing himself calm down. In a quieter tone, he said, "The only thing that matters right now is how to reverse what she did to my brother. Why did she make Dean an Aloviti? And why are you scared of him?"

"It was supposed to be stories, nothing, what you say, superstitions? Not real. But she is here. Your brother came here, asking about our friend, Gornyi. We," she swept her arms to encompass the house and yard, "we think Gornyi's family is responsible. They wanted him to come home, but Gornyi wanted to stay here. They called it, and sent it here. I'm sure of this."

"Gornyi was the man killed at the fishery, right? Why would the Ala kill him?"

Her eyes were huge. "The Ala cannot be controlled, or bought, or convinced. They are like the storm, the sea, earthquakes – like the sand moving across the beaches here. Unstoppable." She pointed toward the front door. "We put up the table to keep her from our houses. She destroys around us, but not here."

"My brother had nothing to do with this. Why would she make him an Aloviti?"

"A storm came when he was here, and the Ala saw him, and changed him. The Ala eats, and eats, taking crops, livestock, and is never full. The Aloviti man understands that. Like calls to like."

"You're serious? She did this because he eats so much? Why didn't she change Gornyi?"

"I don't know! In Serbia, the stories say the Aloviti man is a servant of the Ala. But they are not always a servant. Sometimes a rival, yes? They fight the Ala, and move storms."

"Can an Aloviti defeat an Ala? Destroy it?"

She shook her head in frustration. "I don't know. They aren't supposed to be real!"

Sam waited for her to continue, but her attention was focused behind him. He spun, reaching for his gun, in an unknowing imitation of Dean a few days before. And like Dean before him, Sam was stunned at how quickly a storm had formed. He'd only been there a few minutes.

Milanka turned him back to her. "I told you trouble followed him. Find your brother. She sends this storm to him. Only he can move it away and protect us."

Sam didn't hesitate. He ran back through the house, brushing the kids out of his way. He barreled through the front door, and down the steps, racing for the car. He couldn't see Dean, not in the car, not anywhere. He looked toward the ocean just as a gust of wind barreled into him, grains of sand scraping against his skin.

He popped the trunk for a towel, tying it over his nose and mouth, and opened the front door to grab and don a pair of sunglasses and pull on a jacket, zipping it up to his neck, and tying the hood tightly. He turned into the wind, braced himself against the car, and pushed off toward his brother.

It was such a relief to hear someone, something, speaking, to hear anything, he closed his eyes for a moment. He lifted his head and screamed back into the storm.

"You've got to be kidding! Serve what? Fetch and carry for a thunderstorm?"

"Serve me."

"Oh, I got your 'serve me' right here, bitch. I'll serve you, all right, I'll serve you a trip back to hell!"

"Serve me or I will take more."

The world went white around him. He reached up to his eyes and blinked against his fingers. His eyes were open – he couldn't see. "You god damned bitch, give me my sight back."

She did. He snapped his fingers near his ears, then cupped his hands over his ears and yelled. Fuck, still nothing. "Give me my hearing back!"

"Not yet. Serve me, I will repay you. You do not serve me, I will devour."

"Show yourself, you fucking monster. Show yourself to me."

The wind picked up, kicking up water spouts up and down the shore. Out of the maelstrom above, a towering shape began to coalesce.

It was a woman, or almost a woman, the face split in two by an immense open mouth. From her shoulders to her waist, she looked almost human, but below the waist she became sinuous and snakelike, with a trailing tail corkscrewing back into the clouds. Her body was made up of coiling gray and black clouds, shot through with lightening.

Her torso split to reveal another grotesque mouth, and both mouths began to visibly pull in air and the very clouds her body was composed off. The water spouts arched impossibly tall and thin, funneling up to the mouth in her belly. Dolphins, immense tuna, and mackerel from deep water, flashing silver and black, struggled in the current, disappearing into her immense maw, as gulls and pelicans, sea foam, beach grass, and sand began spiraling toward and disappearing into the mouth in her head.

"You see me now." The face bent down toward him, mouth agape, spectral teeth and tongue grinding languidly as she chewed. "Serve me."

Dean backed up, craning his neck, trying to take in her size. He breathed, "Son of a bitch", before his back hit the wooden railing of steps leading back to the Beach road. She was hundreds of feet tall, almost incomprehensibly huge.

"Never gonna happen, lady, I'll never serve you."

"You reek of need and death, hunger and nightmares, despair." Her nostrils flared as if she were in truth smelling him. "It is delicious, invigorating. Know, man, that what you want, you cannot have. Serve me, and you will live past your ending."

"I'll never serve you. I will kill you, you fucking bitch from hell. Kill you!"

"Then I will take the thing closest to you. You will come to me because you will have no other."

"You don't know anything about me."

"Then I will take the one next to you."

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and with that touch, her compulsion and the pain were gone. He dropped and staggered, turning to see who was next to him, willing it not to be Sam. He had really piss poor luck sometimes. Of course it was Sam.

Dean looked up at his brother's face and almost burst out laughing. Sam looked like a freakishly tall Bedouin. All Dean could see were his brother's eyes, round and wide, staring straight up.

"You can see her? Shit, Sam, you've got to get OUT of here!" He pushed at his brother, trying to turn him back toward the road, chancing a glance over his shoulder at the Ala. "Go, Sam, get back to the car, and drive out of here."

Sam fought back, twisting away from Dean. He was shaking his head and gestured toward the sky.

"She says she's going to take you!"

Dean watched as Sam pulled out some paper and held it up in front of him. Sam tugged the towel down to uncover his mouth, and started to read.

He grabbed Sam's biceps. "A dispersement ritual – will it work?"

Sam lips kept moving and his eyes stayed on the paper in front of him.

Dean thumped his hand on Sam's shoulder. "That's my boy!" He turned back to the Ala, and shouted, "My brother is so going to cook your ass, you fucking monster."

She laughed, a horrible sound, the sound of dead branches tapping against windows in the dead of night, the sound of the whispery scrape and rustle of dead leaves over pavement, the crack of lightening, and the roar of thunder.

Dean felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The Ala waved her arm, slowly and ponderously, to her side, and then, up, creating a fist by her face. Her voice was deep, reverberating through this head.

"No. Now, I take him."

"You are not getting my brother." He stepped in front of Sam, and began pushing him backwards again, toward the road. "Sam, you have to get away from her. Keep reading, but move!"

Her arms moved up and out from her sides. She threw her head back, and her scream was the sound of the wind.

Dean saw movement to either side of him. Dust devils skittered up and down the beach toward them, forming and reforming, growing larger as they approached. The wail of wind in his ears was knifing into his head again. He felt wind behind him and spun in a panic, wrapping his arms around Sam as tightly as he could.

"No, no, no, you are not going anywhere without me."

The wind was working its way between them, like fingers, pulling and pulling, using every molecule of air between them to force them apart.

He screamed at Sam, "Please say you are almost done!"

Sam shook his head turning his eyes toward Dean. It had only been a minute, Dean realized, no time to finish it. Like a living thing, the wind tore the paper out of Sam's hand, reducing the pages to confetti in seconds, the riotous wind whirling around them.

Sam's free hand and arm were caught by the wind and he was being pulled away from Dean, no matter how hard he held on. In the space of a heartbeat, Sam was torn from him, spinning out of sight in a whirl of sand and wind.

Dean turned to face the Ala. Without conscious thought, his arms raised to shoulder height side, and he closed his eyes. "Let's see how you fight, bitch."

Dean woke up with sand in his mouth and up one nostril. He shook his head and spit, cracking one eye open. The sky above him was dark, but clear blue sky was appearing behind the storm as it raced south. He got one arm under him, and was able to get up on his knees, feeling wind pulling at his short hair and slapping his over shirt against him. He brushed the sand off his face, and stood, hawking up sand.

He remembered wind, clouds and … something terrifying and electrifying at the same time. He pulled himself up and stood, his wet clothes making him shiver. The wind was still howling in his ears, but he felt good. He ran that around in his head. Just like at the park after the storm, and the same images of clouds … After the storm. The Ala. Sam.

He spun, and saw only sand, a peaceful ocean, a few gulls, and nothing else. He almost tore his pocket pulling out the locator. He held it up and turned it on, closing his eyes for a moment. He repeated 'not in the water, not in the water' before he opened his eyes, and waited for the machine to acquire a signal. And there it was – away from the water, back toward the road. He raced across the sand, climbed the steps and barreled ahead, watching the screen as he crossed the road. Sam was to the left, but still out of eyesight. How far had that bitch thrown him?

He found Sam three blocks away, out cold, shoved between two cars. It looked like he'd been dropped, or folded into place. Sam was a confusion of arms and antelope legs. Dean ran to his head and pulled off the towel in order to check his pulse, which was good and steady. He tapped Sam's cheek and called his name as he felt his arms and legs. No breaks but plenty of splinters jammed through Sam's clothes and right into his skin. Sam started to move as Dean untied the hood and unzipped the jacket to see his head more closely. Dean caught and held his brother's face.

"Gently, Sam, gently. Don't move too much, OK?" Dean leaned forward to straighten what parts of his brother he could reach, before slowly raising Sam's head and shoulders up enough for him to grab Sam under the arms, and around his chest.

"Don't worry, Sam, I'll get you up and out of here. Don't try to move. Don't move, Sam!" Sam had twitched a leg and was in danger of sliding between the car bumpers and onto the ground. Dean held on, and clambered over the cars, bringing Sam with him, until Sam was sitting, legs dangling, on the hood of one of the cars.

Dean found a bump on the back of Sam's head, and a couple of dents on the cars. When Sam had hit, he had hit hard. Dean took Sam's jacket and shook it, downwind from his brother this time, before tying it around his waist. He brought Sam's chin up enough to see in his eyes. Sam didn't look to have a concussion, but the headache was going to be fierce.

"Come on, Sam, I'm going to take you to the car. Up you go, little brother." Sam wobbled but stood, hanging onto Dean's shoulder, hard. "Can you walk or should I bring the car here?" Sam's mouth moved. "You need to show me, Sam. Nod your head for yes, shake it for no, OK?"

Sam nodded.

"Can you walk to the car?" Sam blinked at him. "Should I bring the car here?"

Sam nodded.

"OK, wait here, Princess, and I'll be right back." He helped Sam lean back until he was sitting on the car again. "Don't move!"

Translations:

"Разве это мужчина?" Is that the man?
"где он?" Where is he?