Chapter Seven
"More demons?" Alan muttered. "What the hell is he doing now?"
Scott shook his head. He was way beyond trying to predict anything at this point.
The shortest of the men was also the oldest by Scott's reckoning; he guessed at early forties. If that kind of thing counted with a demon, that was…his experience of them was a little limited. The man wore an expensive, tailored suit in contrast to the casual jeans and jackets of the younger two, and when he spoke his accent was British, leaning more to toward Lady Penelope's melodious tones than Parker's East End delivery. "Not everything is my fault, Moose. I expect you'll find this underdressed gentleman here is the responsible party."
He nodded toward Gaat, although it wouldn't have been too difficult for the other two in the ring to identify him from that description. The third man pulled an exasperated face. "He summoned you? At a time like this?"
The one called Crowley spread his hands. "So sue me, Dean. It's not as if he made an appointment."
Sizing them up automatically as possible threats, Scott noted that the older man was a couple of inches under six foot, but both the younger two were well over that mark. The shaggy-haired one in particular looked like he might be getting on for as tall as Grandpa Tracy, who'd been six-foot-five. Neither of them looked like they were strangers to taking care of themselves in a fight.
Crowley addressed Gaat. Scott recognized the tone…a guy used to being in command, conceding what he had to, to get the situation handled in the least possible time. As though Gaat was his dry cleaner and had showed up at an inconvenient time wanting payment for an overdue bill. "All right, whoever you are, make it quick. What do you want? Riches? Fame? A better wardrobe? I'd definitely think about that last one, if I were you. Considering."
Gaat stared back at him, unflinching. "Do not be dismissive with me, demon." He jerked his head to indicate behind him. "I want you to break the wards on that ship so I can steal it."
Crowley looked past him at Thunderbird One. So did the younger two. "Wow," the one called Dean said. "That's quite a ride."
"Hmmm," Crowley said thoughtfully. "Unless this is Area 51 and the military has severely relaxed its dress code, I'd say we're not in 2010 anymore."
The younger two men looked at each other. "Great," Dean sighed. "This gets better and better."
"Again, not responsible," Crowley pointed out. He looked back at Gaat. "And what do I get for helping you?"
Gaat's thick brows drew together. "Get? You are a demon, I am your summoner. You must do my bidding or I will not release you."
Crowley glanced around him. "Such a lovely invitation. And you've done such great things with the place, too - very minimalist. I think I like it."
He smiled at Gaat then. It was an unsettling expression, and his tone slid toward a matching darkness. "I'm not just any old demon, my friend. You've got a tiger by the tail. Tell him, boys."
"Uh, we're not with him," Dean said. "No matter what he says."
Crowley clapped a hand over the general location of his heart, the humor back in his voice. "Dean, you wound me," he said, although he clearly didn't mean it.
Gaat folded his arms. "I am not a patient man," he said, warningly.
Unmoved, Crowley continued to take in his surroundings, glancing over at the Tracy group. When he met Scott's eyes briefly, Scott felt a chill deep down inside that made him catch his breath.
"Who is that?" Alan hissed. Scott looked at him, realized he'd felt the same thing.
"So whose rocket are we stealing?" Crowley said. "Is this one of those military espionage things? I do love a bit of intrigue."
"That is none of your concern," Gaat growled.
Crowley shrugged. "Just making conversation, don't get your knickers in a knot."
"Can we get this moving?" Dean asked. "We were kind of in the middle of something, in case you'd forgotten…"
Crowley arched both eyebrows. "You too? Maybe you'd like to help this gentleman out?"
"The wards," Gaat reminded them in a voice like gravel.
Crowley walked to the edge of the circle. "A little hard to see them from here," he remarked. "If I could get closer…"
Gaat laughed. "You cannot trick me that easily, demon."
Crowley's tone turned to the depths of winter. "That's King of the Demons to you, you insignificant piece of shit!" He roared. "How dare you speak to me like that!"
Scott thought he felt the ground rumble; glanced at Alan, whose expression showed him he hadn't imagined it.
If Gaat registered it, he gave no sign. "I may speak to you any way I wish," he came back, raising his voice to match. "You are the king of nothing when you are in my circle. You must do what I command!"
The one called Moose stepped forward, hands up. "Look, guys, we get it, you're both badasses. But can we skip the part where we drop our pants and get out the ruler? Crowley, just break his damn wards and we can get back to business."
Crowley folded his arms to match Gaat's stance. Moose dropped his head in frustration. Lifting his chin again, he looked for the first time towards Scott and the others, then down at the circle surrounding him. "Uh, Dean…we don't have to, uh…"
Dean looked down as well, then made a "duh" expression. "We'll be back," he said to Crowley, who ignored him, as did Gaat.
That overconfidence was going to be their captor's undoing, if Scott had anything to say about it.
He and Alan exchanged surprised glances as both of the younger newcomers walked casually out of the circle and headed toward them. The Tracys quickly placed themselves between the approaching men and Tin-Tin and Virgil. Scott slid the Sig Sauer out of its holster, saw Alan follow suit with his own sidearm.
The newcomers halted a few feet away, evaluating the warning. "I know it's an overused term," Dean said, lifting his hands. "But we're the good guys."
"Who are you, and how did you get out of that circle?" Scott asked warily.
"We're not demons," the one called Moose said. "The circle does nothing to hold human beings."
"If you're human, then why did you wind up in there?" Alan demanded.
"We were caught up in the moment, you could say," Dean said. "Sometimes when you're touching a demon and it's summoned, you go along for the ride." He looked around at the hangar. "How come we never get to go somewhere nice, like Cancun?"
"I'm Sam Winchester," Moose said. "This is my brother, Dean, who has never actually been to Cancun. Would you mind telling us where we are?"
"And when," Dean added. "When might help."
Scott hesitated for a long moment. "Scott Tracy. This is my brother, Alan."
"We're in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica," Alan supplied. "And it's 2029."
"2029?" Dean whistled. "How the hell did that happen?"
Moose/Sam indicated Gaat. "Must have been something he did."
"You think?" Dean shook his head. He walked up to Tin-Tin, bent forward and snapped his fingers in front of her face. She didn't blink. "Trance?"
Scott nodded, jerking his head at Gaat. "His work."
"Could come in useful," Dean said, semi-admiringly, then shut down the expression immediately at Alan's glare. "You're the boyfriend. I get it."
Sam crouched beside Virgil, looking at the dressings on his back. "What happened to him?"
"This is our brother Virgil," Scott said. "He's in a bad way – he needs a hospital and soon."
"One of them shot him," Alan said angrily. "And we can't leave to get help. Gaat's done something to this hangar. We don't know what, or how."
Dean and Sam exchanged glances. "Done something?" Dean asked.
Scott briefly recapped their experience with the howling vortex. "It would have pulled us both out if Gaat hadn't slammed the door. Closest I can describe it, it was like looking at the wall of a tornado."
"Seen a few of those," Alan said. "We're from Kansas."
"No kidding. So are we!" Dean perked up. "Whereabouts?
Sam cleared his throat. "Let's stay on track here. From the sounds of it, that Gaat guy has somehow taken this place out of the time stream. That would explain why he wound up accidentally summoning the Crowley from our time instead of the one from today."
"Assuming we haven't already killed the one from today," Dean said. "A guy can hope."
"We hunt things like them for a living," Sam explained.
"You didn't look much like you were hunting that one," Alan said pointedly, indicating Crowley.
Dean smiled, but the lightness didn't reach his eyes. Scott had seen that look during his time in the service; this man had witnessed a lot of death. "It's complicated. Crowley and us…we go back a ways. It's nearly impossible to kill a demon that powerful. But you can sometimes persuade them to help you out."
"That's what we were doing when that guy over there summoned Crowley," Sam said. "Persuading him to help us out."
"Are you saying we can't kill those things?" Scott said, nodding towards the demons surrounding the circle.
"It's easier with the rank and file," Dean said. "You can kill the meat suit. That forces the demon to leave."
"Meat suit?" Alan asked.
"What you're looking at over there are people who've been possessed by demons," Sam explained. "They call the human body they're wearing a 'meat suit.'"
"So…you're saying that to get rid of the demon, you have to kill the person it's taken over?" Scott frowned. "And the demon still escapes?"
Dean nodded. "That's about the size of it. Unless you have one very special gun…and that kills the person and the demon."
"Shit," Scott said heavily. He had a sudden, ugly flashback to being on the ground behind enemy lines in Bereznik, a wounded wingman to protect and the prospect of killing a lot of enemy "meat suits" before they found their way back to freedom.
He'd thought he was done with all that.
"There is a way to send the demon back where it came from and free the person," Sam added, off Scott's expression. "But it takes making it sit still and listen to a lot of Latin. I can't see that happening in a situation like this."
"But even if you just kill the suit, at least the demon's out of the game for a while," Dean said. "You gotta count that as a win."
Scott glanced back at Crowley and Gaat, still arguing. He was very far away from counting any of this as a win.
"Go ahead, John." Jeff settled heavily into the chair behind his desk.
John's portrait morphed into Thunderbird Five's live feed. "How's Kyrano, Dad?"
"I don't know, son. Brains has looked him over but he can't find anything physically wrong. It's like those episodes he used to have, but worse. Brains thought it might be a stroke at first but apparently his scans are clear. If he doesn't improve in a little while we may have to transport him to the mainland and consult a specialist."
He shook off the nagging feeling of foreboding with an effort. "What have you got for me?"
"Let me get Gordon on the line," John said.
He looked away from the screen for a moment, then Virgil's portrait on the lounge wall flickered and became Gordon in the cockpit of Thunderbird Two. Jeff could easily see the stress lines around his second-youngest's eyes and mouth. Gordon hadn't taken it well when Brains' attempts at using a remote scan of the hangar area had failed to produce even the slightest sign of the building that he knew had been there. Jeff had forbidden him to leave the relative safety of Thunderbird Two to investigate in person until they had a better idea of what they were dealing with, and the signs of his son's unwilling obedience made themselves clear in the bunched muscles of his jaw.
"I have you both on screen now," John said, somewhat unnecessarily. "I've been looking into this village Scott and the crew were lured to, Las Muertas. It took me a bit of digging, but it seems that isn't the whole name of the place. It's actually called Las Muertas Viviantes. It means—"
"The Living Dead," Gordon interrupted. "Very atmospheric."
"It didn't always go by that name," John went on. "It was once a village of five hundred or so people. The details are a little sketchy, but apparently a foreign mining company wanted to dig for gold there, back in the 1970s. Made friends with the locals, promised them gold for their temple if they helped them. Said they'd honor their gods."
"I take it that didn't happen?" Jeff said.
"No. And worse, these people had been pretty much isolated for a long time. They had no immunity to western illnesses, and they'd had no vaccinations. The mining company people introduced them to whooping cough. A huge number of the children died, we know that because of the testimony of one of the employees who made it out of there to try to get them some help. Apparently his request was refused by the head office. Then the company lost touch with the mining operation, and eventually they sent in a plane. By that time it was all over. It looked like the villagers had risen up against the mining company in revenge for their children, and they'd managed to wipe each other out."
"That's a terrible story," Jeff said. "You're sure it's the same place?"
"Quite sure, Dad. The native people in the surrounding area won't go near the village. They believe the spirits of the dead rise and re-enact the killing of the mining company employees." He hesitated for a moment. "I also found a website that talked about a film crew that went out there to make a movie about it back in 2014. It's probably just an urban legend…but the website claims they were never heard from again."
Gordon raised his eyebrows. "More good news," Jeff said. "Good job, John…I just wish it got us closer to figuring out what's happened to Scott and the others."
"We'll put the pieces together, Dad," Gordon tried for a reassuring tone; fell a little short. "It's only a matter of time."
Jeff found himself wishing fervently that he believed him.