Chapter Nine

John finally caught up with the Winchesters at a gas station off Interstate 40 near Forrest City, Arkansas. "International Rescue?" Dean's deep voice had an edge of gravel, as though he was recovering from a cold. "Is somebody in trouble?"

"You are," John informed him. "And your brother. And four people from my…organization."

"Is this some kind of joke?" Dean asked sharply.

"No, sir. We need your help urgently. And…so do you."

In the silence that followed, a truck horn sounded somewhere, and John could hear laughter and car doors closing. "OK, I'll bite," Dean said at last, cautiously. "But I need some kind of proof that you are who you say you are. Turn on your vidscreen."

"I will if you will," John negotiated.

A pause, then a sigh and the image flickered to life. In the harsh lights of the gas station, Dean's creased and weathered face looked older than the fifty years of age John had calculated he had to be by now, which wasn't surprising considering the life he'd led. The bones were still good, though… he'd been handsome in his youth and it was clear he could still cut a swath with the ladies. Behind him, by the pumps, John could see the front grille of a car Alan would have flipped over, a black 1967 Impala.

"Your turn," Dean prompted.

John switched on Five's video feed. Dean looked instantly impressed. "Well, what d'you know, you really are International Rescue." He waved at someone off to the right. "Hey, Sam! C'mere! It's International Rescue!"

Another face appeared beside Dean's. Sam Winchester, too, looked lined and weatherbeaten, his shaggy hair shot through with gray and almost reaching his shoulders. "You're kidding." He stopped as he saw John's uniform. "You're not kidding."

"We need your help, and there may not be much time," John said. "Four members of my organization are trapped in a warehouse in Costa Rica with…you two, and someone called Crowley, who's apparently a demon. What I've been told is that the man who's holding our operatives captive summoned Crowley from the year 2010…and you two came along for the ride." He paused. "You don't know how ridiculous I feel saying all that."

Dean snorted. "Sounds like just another day at the office to us, buddy."

"One of ours was shot," John added bleakly. "We need to get him out of there and to a hospital, and soon."

The screen bounced as Dean and Sam headed back toward the car and settled into the front seats. "OK, Mr. International Rescue," Dean said. "Tell us everything…'we'…told you, and let's see if we can figure out how to get all of us out of this mess."

Virgil's pulse was slowly getting weaker, his breathing more labored. Sick with fear for his brother, Scott sat with him, holding his hand, talking to him – as though with sheer force of will he could keep Virgil with him. Once in a while Virgil managed a response, but his words were getting harder to understand and further apart.

"I liked them better when they were arguing." Dean crouched down beside Scott, nodding toward Crowley and Gaat.

Scott followed his gaze. The demon and his summoner weren't arguing at the top of their lungs on either side of the circle wall any more…they now seemed to be deep in some kind of intense discussion. "I know what you mean."

"How's your brother?"

Scott exhaled noisily, looked back at Virgil's mostly unconscious form. "He's hanging in there. I don't know how." He managed to crack a smile. "He's always been stubborn as hell."

"I've got one like that, too." Dean's mouth quirked as he glanced over at Sam, who was sitting with Alan and the still blankly unresponsive Tin-Tin. "Don't give up yet...there's still a good chance you'll get him out of this. Damn, if I could tell you the troubles I've gotten Sam out of…you probably wouldn't believe me."

"I wish I had your confidence," Scott grated. "I can't do much for him here but try to keep him comfortable. We have a fully stocked medbay on Thunderbird Two, and we could have a doctor online like that." He snapped his fingers. "But I can't get him there, dammit."

"Seems to me he wouldn't be here at all if you hadn't already done all this," Dean said, gesturing at the bandages that covered Virgil's back and the bag that pumped fluids and medications into his body. "What are you guys, anyway? Some kind of medic team?"

Scott hesitated for a moment. What the hell, Tracy, none of you might get out of this alive. "International Rescue," he said.

"Doesn't sound familiar," Dean admitted. "Should it?"

Scott gave a tired smile. "2010, right? Check back with me in sixteen years."

"That's a promise." Dean nodded. "As long as I remember all this. You never know with time travel. Sam thinks we create alternate time streams all the time, even when we have to make decisions – let alone when something like this happens. You should hear us arguing about The Terminator."

"Gordon loves that shit," Scott said. "He'll screen a time travel movie and then spend the whole time talking about how it doesn't make sense. It can get interesting sometimes. Our resident genius back home...seriously, he's the kind you think has to be a different species, the way his mind works...he likes to get into it with Gordo, and you should see him play the quantum mechanics card when he's losing. Unfair advantage…he knows nobody else has any idea what he's talking about."

The thought of Gordon brought the present moment back into sharp focus: the hard concrete floor, Virgil's labored breathing, the feeling of being in some kind of terrible, hopeless limbo, like a fly in slowly setting amber.

An image which, he supposed, probably wasn't far from the truth. He glanced over toward the hangar wall in the general direction of Thunderbird Two.

What was taking so long?

Gordon read the list of instructions for the fourth time, trying not to feel like he'd stumbled into one of the discs in his own horror movie collection. "Do you have it all, Gordon?" his father asked anxiously. "Are you ready?"

"Four photos of the warehouse from Thunderbird Five's surveillance backups, check. Four rocks from the ground the warehouse sits on, check. Blood…" Gordon moved the Kabar out of the range of the vidscreen and carefully sliced his palm open. Four drops of blood, one on each photo. "Check."

He applied a quick-clotting sponge to his palm and closed his hand around it. Moments later he'd wrapped the hand, resheathed the knife and was back to work. He carefully folded each photo around one of the rocks, then loaded them into a canvas bag. He picked up a flashlight and a piece of paper on which strange words were printed. "OK, let's get this show on the road."

"Be careful out there," Jeff warned.

"I will be, Dad. John, I'm going outside. Stand by with the grid."

"FAB."

Gordon scooped up the helmet he'd readied and placed on the console beside him, checked his sidearm and headed for the ladder to the pod floor.

The night was still and calm as he exited through the hatch. The storm had passed and the sky was clear, the stars vivid in this place so far from the ambient light of civilization. Gordon donned the helmet, pulled down the clear visor. "Ready, John."

The visor came alive with glowing green lines. Gordon looked toward where the warehouse had been – where it still stood, according to Kyrano's earlier words. All he could do was trust the traces he was seeing on his visor, which stood in for the building's actual dimensions. Red tags marked each corner, where he would have to deposit the stones.

Here goes nothing, Gordon thought. He set out toward the first tag.

Jeff sat at the desk, feeling like he'd aged ten years since this whole situation had begun. In the space of what he realized with surprise had only been a few short hours, four of his sons and Tin-Tin had made a crash landing in Thunderbird Two, all of them but Gordon had become trapped in a warehouse with Kyrano's half-brother, Belah Gaat…and one of Gaat's henchmen had shot Virgil, leaving his life in the balance. And to put the cherry on top, Gaat had somehow also managed to make the whole hangar and all its contents invisible.

Invisible. Jeff ran his fingers through his hair. And now Gordon was walking around a building he couldn't see, planting rocks with blood-covered photos wrapped around them at each corner and chanting some ancient gobbledygook that these Winchester brothers…who were also somehow inside the building at the same time, only twenty years younger…had assured them would make the structure visible again.

And Kyrano had suffered another of his fits, only this time it was more like a trance. He was still lying motionless in the sickbay downstairs, eyes open and staring up at the ceiling.

Jeff needed a drink. Hell, he needed a whole bottle.

The beeping of an incoming transmission drew his eyes to John's portrait, which switched immediately to a live view. "Father, I have Eduardo on the line. I think you should hear this."

"Put him through, John."

Eduardo's face appeared on the screen. "Mr. Tracy! I am afraid I have some very bad news about the place where your sons crashed."

Jeff frowned at his agent's dismayed expression. "Go on."

"That man who pretended to be me shortened the name, which is why I had trouble finding it. The full name of the place isn't Las Muertas, it's Las Muertas Vivientes!"

"We know that, Eduardo," Jeff said. "John's already filled us in."

"There's more, Father," John put in.

"If you know the story of Las Muertas, then you know that the people from the surrounding areas believe the dead still walk there," Eduardo said, speaking so fast he was practically tripping over his words. "I consulted with my friend who is a shaman. He says your sons are in great danger…they must leave the area immediately!"

"It's not that easy, Eduardo. You see –"

Eduardo was nearly frantic. "Mr. Tracy, you must listen to me! He says the dead have heard the one who uses the dark powers to summon evil! They have heard and have awakened." He crossed himself quickly.

Even as Jeff's mind told him he wasn't being rational, his stomach did an uneasy flip. He looked up at John.

"Gordon's out there, doing that...spell stuff the Winchesters told us to, right now…" John said, his expression mirroring the way Jeff's insides felt. "I know it sounds crazy, Dad, but…"

"Senor Tamayo is right. You must tell Gordon to seek safety," a familiar voice came from the entrance to the lounge. "Quickly!"

"Kyrano!" Jeff exclaimed, hurrying to his old friend's side. He put his arm around Kyrano's shoulders to steady him. "Are you all right?"

"I will be fine…but Gordon—"

"Father, I can see them!"

Jeff's head swung back toward John's live feed. John had gone deathly pale.

"What, son? See what?" Although Jeff was very afraid he already knew.

"Look!" John switched through the feed from Thunderbird Two's external cameras. They could all see dozens of shadowy figures, gray against the darkness, emerging from the depths of the forest and moving around the ship toward the location of the warehouse. They seemed to be solidifying as they went.

"John, get your brother back inside Thunderbird Two right now!" Jeff barked.

"Yessir!"

Jeff stared at the monitor. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life.