Episode Six
"The Little Fish"
Chapter Two
"Hey," Kevin said.
Crowley looked up from the computer he was poking at. Kevin's laptop, as it happened, but Kevin didn't ask for it back, and Crowley didn't make a move to give it up.
"Hey," he said back.
Kevin came further into the warroom, walked the perimeter looking at the various Men of Letters items of note and sundry trophies, but didn't say anything else.
"Something on your mind, Mini Moose?" Crowley asked. It was a tricky question, just loaded with all kinds of nasty things the pocket-sized prophet could say to him. Mother this, girlfriend that, by the way you held me captive for a longish time, but you fed me well so maybe that's a wash.
But Kevin just looked at him. Little half smile. Solicitous.
"Kev?"
"I was wondering if maybe we should start the translation work right now, get a jump on it, I mean why wait? Sam signed off on the protection thingie, and they're off working, who knows when they'll be back, and-"
"Hold up," Crowley said, shutting the lid of the laptop so he could get his bearing. "You want me to do what. Provide assistance if something goes wrong?"
Kevin shrugged, lifted an eyebrow as though he didn't want to be asking, but didn't have another option. "Cas is off doing that angel. Uh, thing. Doing angel things."
Crowley chuckled. "As much as it warms my blackened little heart that I'm your very last choice here, why don't we just wait? What's the rush?"
"I'm not actually sure," Kevin said, slumping into a chair across the table from Crowley. "I guess Sam thinks they need more info about whatever deal they made with Death- You know all this already, right?"
"Course I do."
"Really? Or am I just telling you stuff you're not supposed to know?"
"You've been watching too much Intrigue TV, monkey. I'm a good guy now, remember?"
"It's been like a month since that whole thing went down. How do I know you aren't, like, reverting back to your evil ways."
Crowley sighed. He wasn't sure of the answer himself. "You'll just have to trust me."
Kevin raised a brow.
"Bruiser and Bouncer left me here with you. The word of a Winchester isn't enough for you?"
"They don't know you like I know you."
"No. Our relationship is admittedly different." Crowley watched the kid, he hadn't slept much, shaggy hair. Needed another sharp manicure. Kevin stared right back at him though, didn't back down. Well, Crowley hadn't expected him too, really. Kevin wasn't the back down sort these days, if he ever was. And now he was wondering, what if Moose's cure did start to wear off? What if he started to slide back into what he had been, the thing that still surged in his veins now and then, the wrongness of doing right, the terror of lifetimes of guilt heaped on his back and the desire to see all that terrible feeling business whisked away by some good ol' backsliding.
That desire was at war, now, with the desire to see Kevin safe, to see Moose and Squirrel unharmed. This human part of him who was intensely grateful that Jody Mills was alive. The part that had no idea how to make anything better, attain any kind of relief or forgiveness, that skittered around sometimes when he was alone for too long, unsure and unmoored and desperate. The part that knew without a doubt what that demon part of him would do to these people if he were to revert back to his old self, the punishment for putting him through these ruinous torments, starting with Sam Winchester and working through the bunker, every damned kind word or chance at making amends repaid in blood.
"Are you engaged in a staring contest?" Cas said, appearing in the doorway.
Well, not appearing appearing. But having come back from doing whoever- whatever he had been doing. Crowley rolled his eyes at Castiel's doggedly stilted manner of speech. He had an idea Cas just really liked seeming odd and never intended to drop the affect. So said the man who'd lived as an American for a hundred years and still called people 'pet' and said 'bloody' with relish. Hum.
"No," Kevin said, but he still didn't look away.
"Where have you been," Crowley said, turning to Cas quite obviously breaking eye contact with Kevin.
"Lethaniel and I have been gathering forces-"
"For what?" Kevin asked.
Crowley considered Castiel. He had taken to wearing a blue sweater instead of his damp old trenchcoat, and his hair looked nice. He was so human about it all. No wonder he clung to his angel-speak.
"The angels have lost their way. They are wreaking havoc all over the globe after falling-"
"There's riots in places," Kevin suggested. "Angels?"
"Likely. They are... undirected. And they have forgotten that they were purpose-built to love and protect humanity. Naomi might have helped teach them that, if she were alive."
Crowley frowned. "She's dead?" His heart, an unexpected little pang. His sparring partner. Gone.
"I'm certain of it. She had regained her memory before the end. Now there are little better than a dozen soldiers under Lethaniel. We think if we can get the others to see what Lethaniel saw, we might be able to salvage the Host."
"So your mission is to save the angels," Kevin said.
Castiel nodded. "And humanity as a by-product. They will tear this world apart, even without their full power."
"When you say, get them to see what featherless pigeon-poo saw, you mean-"
"Expose them to Sam Winchester, yes."
"No."
Castiel turned to Crowley. "No?"
"No. The brainless bint nearly barbequed him on sight when she met him. We can't take that chance-"
"We must."
"Find another way-"
"Guys," Kevin interceded, and it was right he did because Crowley felt himself getting all evil just thinking about little feathery robots getting their murderous hands on Sam. "Why don't we let Sam decide about it, okay?"
"Fine," Cas said.
"Fine."
Castiel sighed heavily then and came fully into the warroom, sat himself into a chair. "So how are things on your end?" he asked.
Crowley raised a brow. "My end?"
"Yes. Hell. You are still their King, and with Abaddon gone you must manage the divided factions."
Crowley raised the other brow. "Ah. Yes. That. I'm working on it."
"What are you guys doing here?" Charlie squealed, coming up to hug them each in turn.
"Uh," Sam said, oofing as she thumped into him fresh from Dean's arms. Dean grinned at how tight Charlie squeezed, how low on Sam's chest her head reached, how she patted his formerly injured shoulder and how Sam reacted by flexing his hand into a fist and working the shoulder joint just to show her he was okay. "We're on a hunt. What are you doing here?"
Charlie stepped back, grinned that sheepish I-been-doin'-something-you-ain't-gonna-like grin. "Oh, same."
Dean's grin vanished. "What do you mean, same?"
"Uh, same," she said, shrugging. "Is there an echo out here? Gosh."
"You're on a hunt?" Sam glanced around like someone could overhear them. "Charlie-"
"Do you even know what we're hunting?" Dean cut in, taking her by the shoulder. She looked affronted.
"Nnnnno? But I will. Soon." She brandished her tablet.
"It's a goatman-" Sam said.
"It's not a goatman," Dean hissed. "Those things are impossible to track. You saying she tracked something impossible? No way."
Charlie tossed her hair. "Way."
"It's not impossible to track," Sam said. "I tracked it."
"Yeah, like it's hard?" Charlie said, all valley girl. "Maybe you're just a little shortbus, buddy." Sam laughed.
"This isn't funny, Sam. If this thing is a goatman-"
"It's a goatman," Charlie and Sam said in unison.
"I said if-" Dean roared. Discussion among the other campers silenced. Dean looked around. Goddammit. When the conversation murmur started up again, he whispered harsh, "IF it's a goatman, which we don't know that it is, it's dangerous, Charlie. You can't come on this one."
"Come on, bro," she said, lowering her voice into what she probably thought was "dude" territory. "I'm prepped man. I got a pocket knife, I got my research-" She waggled her tablet at him.
"Well do you even know how to kill it?"
"Do you?"
Dean looked at Sam for some goddamned support. No way was Sam on board for Charlie risking her life.
"She's got us there, Dean," Sam said, and Dean could just tell the SOB was holding back another laugh. "Okay okay," Sam went on, and to Dean's relief, his amusement seemed to be settling the fuck down. "Look, we came out to protect these guys, but you're right. We don't know how to kill it yet. Maybe the better plan is just to go back to the motel, figure out all the details. This whole camping thing was last minute anyway."
Charlie seemed to consider, sighed big, but then froze, watching Sam's face. "Wait a minute. No way. I almost fell for it."
"Fell for what?" Sam asked.
"Your big dumb puppy thing."
Sam looked offended; Dean didn't bother hiding his own laugh at his expense. Oh the turning tables.
"You were gonna just drop me off at the motel and come back out here, weren't you?"
"No?" Sam looked to Dean for support, and Dean just had to grin and put his hands up like you're on your own bro. "No," Sam said sternly, earnestly at Charlie.
"No way. Put those eyebrows away mister. I'm not falling for it."
"What are you even talking about?"
"You know."
Sam boggled at Dean. It was possible he didn't know about the eyebrow thing, Dean thought. "All right. What do we have to do to make this-" Dean gestured at Charlie and her backpack and her stupid camping hat and her dumb hiking boots. "-not happen?"
"Nothing you can do. Sorry boys. I'm in."
Charlie whirled away from them, thumbs in her backpack straps, and strode toward the campers who were sorting themselves out into teams.
"Crap."
"You said it," Dean agreed. He eyed the two groups. Blue seemed like it had a bunch of strangers on the team. Red had a clump of people who seemed like they knew each other maybe. Since the goatman - yeah right - had a habit of blending in with a bunch of strangers, blue was more at risk, and Charlie was headed toward blue anyway, so that made his mind up. "I'm thinking blue team."
"Okay," Sam said. "Then I'll take red."
Dean turned to him. "What? No. We're taking blue. Let's go." He turned to go.
"Dean..." Dean didn't look back. He knew those eyebrows were back, the soft earnest plea in Sam's tone, beseeching. "Dean, come on. We gotta split up. You know I'm right."
Dean did turn then, steeled himself against the dumb little brother act and turned to face Sam, to make himself clear. "No, what I know is that you like to get yourself kidnapped for fun, if I'm not there to keep an eye on you."
And so what if Sam's soft pleading half smile faded instantly, so what if his gaze went a little hollow and he looked away from Dean. So what if the slope of his shoulders just made Dean want to quit hunting forever so he'd never have to see it again. Sam couldn't do it alone. Dean couldn't let Sam do it alone.
But Sam took that breath, that preparing for war breath, and he turned to Dean, and he said, "This is what we signed up for, Dean. You're okay letting half of these kids just walk off to their deaths? I'm not. Someone has to protect them. That someone is us. I know you think I'm a liability, but please. Please."
Dean watched Sam, and okay yeah, Charlie was right. The eyebrow thing was a hazard. But then Dean had known that for decades, and he could ignore them, he could sneer at them and beat his brother chained to a wall in a dungeon if his blood felt like doing it, he could use them to fuel his own anger if he needed something to rail against. Yeah, he could minimize the effects of that hangdog expression if he needed to.
And he needed to now, but. All he could see was Sam straining against an invisible tormentor, so silent when every human screams, every human screams, Dean knows this from experience - and Sam overcoming an arch-angel, and all of heaven's plans, hell's plans for them, and Sam shouldering insanity, and Sam walking into a burning building in an alternate universe. And Sam right now. Looking like he needed Dean's confirmation. Like he'd forgotten anything else he'd accomplished.
So Dean couldn't do it, couldn't ignore that face, forehead wrinkles, flared nostrils, the fight in him that Dean sometimes worried he'd never see again. "I'm going to regret this," he said.
"No you aren't," Sam said.
"Well I already do, so suck it. All right. Blue team," he said, pointing at his chest. "Red team?" pointing at Sam.
Sam looked out at the chattering mob, now pulling on tee shirts in their designated team colors. "Yeah, sounds good-" He broke off, and it was because Charlie was coming back with shirts for both of them.
"Good. I'm on Dean's team." She handed him a blue shirt.
Dean grinned, glanced at Sam with a little look who's the favorite wink, but Sam was nodding, subdued when he reached for the red shirt and Dean felt a little bad, and then worse as he saw superimposed on this battered older Sam a younger Sam from just a few weeks ago, a Sam who didn't know him - Sam is 22 and vibrant, he hasn't learned to withdraw and go sit in the car, and Dean feels like an asshole for not noticing how solitary his old broken down brother has become-
"Man, why do I have to deal with the annoying kid sister?" Dean whined then, and Sam's mouth lifted a little at the ends.
Charlie smiled sweetly, tossed her hair. "Because you stick out like a sore thumb in this crowd, dingleberry." She gestured at his jeans and work boots, then turned to showcase Sam's hiking shoes and shorts and general outdoorsy physique. Nerd. "Sassafras passes. But you? I think I gotta pretend to be your sister or something, like I'm dragging you here against your will. Because no one who's into this would dress like that."
Dean stared. Looked at Sam for some back-up only to find Sam was trying not to laugh at him. Charlie had effectively banished the gloom and doom and Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever. Give me that."
Dean stripped off his flannel and pulled the blue tee shirt on over the black tee shirt he was already wearing.
"I also have some stuff you guys probably don't have."
"We got water, food, maps," Dean said.
"You probably don't have a GPS," Charlie said, pulling a bright yellow, brand new GPS device from her jacket pocket and gesturing it toward Dean.
"He does."
"I do?"
Sam nodded off to the side to indicate Dean's backpack. "Bottom of your bag."
"You packed us GPSes?"
Sam grimaced. "I only had one."
"What're you gonna use?"
Sam shrugged, like he knew Dean was going to have a fit when he said: "I have a compass."
"Sam-"
"I didn't know this was going to happen," Sam said, sweeping out a hand to indicate the whole teams thing.
"Old school," Charlie said, approving. "Nice. But you're not gonna be best buds with your team with that. This is a timed-trial, boys."
"It's not like we're actually trying to win," Sam reminded. "But yeah, if you have a spare, I'll take it."
Charlie handed it over to Sam. Dean watched, worry burbling in his belly the longer they stood there. Sam gave Dean the only real reliable 'can't get lost' device and then had the nerve to say they should split up? What else had Sam done to stack the deck against himself? Suddenly Dean was in a hotel room in Boston and Sam was holding a gun to his own temple and Dean wondered how many other times, how many other times had this happened without Dean knowing, this kind of intentional lack of prep-
But then Sam pulled his red shirt on over his head and said quietly, earnestly, honestly, "Dean, hey. I got this, okay? Please."
"Shut up. I know you got this. So shut up about it. And for god's sake don't die."
Sam did laugh then, nodded at Charlie and after a final look at Dean that read be careful, watch yourself, please be safe, he went off to mingle with the rest of the red team.
"You know," Charlie said, watching him go. "If they knew there was a vicious monster in these woods, I bet they'd have gone with a different color shirt."
Dean watched Sam too. The way his face lit up as he said something to someone in red at the back of the pack, as he shifted into the group like he belonged there, as he made some other kid laugh-
"You know. Because they're redshirts?"
Dean closed his eyes, shook his head. Laughed just a little. "No I get it. Come on. So what, sister? Cousin? Girlfriend?" He waggled a brow.
"Gross. Anyway, there's some hotties here. I'm not letting you cockblock me again. You and me? Strictly siblonic. Got it?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Sooooo," Charlie said once they were tromping through the underbrush. "That was intense. What's up? Is he still not feeling well? Is it his arm? Is he eating yet? You can tell me. In fact, I insist. He's ma boiii." She struck some kinda weird gangster pose out of a rap video.
"Nothing's up, Charlie."
"Yeah, right."
Dean watched around them, alert for signs of the thing they were hunting, wendigo-style territory marks, anything. The birds were singing in the trees, little forest animals scuttled around. Not common behavior for these kinds of foresty monsters; they tend to eat or scare everything in a radius around their hunting grounds.
"Yeah but no really. Give me the dish. If he's not okay, he shouldn't be on the hunt, right?"
"Sam's fine."
"Because at his party, he barely got out of his chair and spent the rest of the night in his room after you went to get real food-"
"He's fine dammit!"
The other blue shirts ahead of them looked back at his outburst.
"Dammit, Charlie," he hissed, and life went on around them, politely ignoring them as they stood facing each other. "If you wanted to know so bad, you should have gone with him."
"I wanted to come with you. You're the fun one, uh, usually," she amended with some disapproval. "And I knew he wouldn't tell me if he was okay or not."
"Sam's fun. Just get him talking about one of those books you gave him and he'll talk for hours. Believe me."
"You're avoiding the question. And you're extra touchy. And you're extra extra not-fun. So spill."
Dean balled his hands up in fist. But he couldn't just punch Charlie, god. So fine. "He got himself kidnapped by a witch a week ago, okay? He was gone for four days before I could find him, and I just." She was watching him, this girl who didn't want to miss the "broment," whatever that was. This girl who sank her head to his chest and said she loved him, who told Sam that if anyone could do the impossible, it was him. This girl who had somehow wormed her way in where even Jo hadn't gone.
Maybe because there was always a kind of kindling between him and Jo, maybe because there was the baggage of their fathers between them, maybe because Jo grew up in the life like he did, because Jo hadn't had a chance to, before she died, before she died for them, hadn't had a chance to really find herself between her mom and wanting to follow in her dad's footsteps and feeling, probably like Sam had, like a freak.
Charlie was free floating in a way Jo hadn't had a chance to be, Charlie also had no ideas of romance to attach to Dean. Not that Jo- enough about Jo. He was wrong about Jo. Jo had wormed her way in and now Jo's gone.
"Dean?"
"He's fine. It's me. I lost track of him and I couldn't find him, and all I had to do was find him and he wouldn't have had to kill this woman, he wouldn't have had to be a prisoner for four days with this lunatic. He can do this. It's me who can't, okay?"
Charlie nodded thoughtfully. "So wait. He killed someone? A week ago?"
"We've both killed people, Charlie."
"I guess I knew that. It's just different to hear about it."
"I guess it would be," he said, and that was an end to it. No more questions.
"So hey wait-"
Dean groaned.
Sam catalogued the people he was hiking with as well as he could. There were sixteen of them, including himself, seven women, nine men. Three couples, one of them two women. One man almost as tall as Sam was, one woman with a slight limb reduction defect affecting her left arm. He took note of any attribute he could, race, hair color, glasses - if anyone went missing, he needed to know.
And if anyone wasn't supposed to be there, he needed to know that too.
"Don't let her catch you staring."
"Hm?" Sam looked over to find Robbie Gotts (black, big smile, shorter side, camera, notebook in which Sam caught him writing notes about every photograph he took) grinning at him.
"She'll smack you with her good hand."
"I wasn't - I mean, that's not why-"
"I'm just giving you a hard time, man. She's cool anyway."
"So you guys know each other uh, IRL?"
Robbie chuckled at him. "Yeah, we know each other IRL."
"Cool."
"Don't even try it, man."
"Try what?" Sam looked back at her. Like he was going to what, try to talk to her about her arm? She seemed like she was doing just fine. He wasn't that rude- Maybe if she started to have trouble or asked for help or something, but just out of the blue-?
"You know what. And I get it. But she is outta your league."
Sam looked back at Robbie. Light dawned. "Oh. Oh. No. No."
"Excuse me? She not good enough for you?"
"I mean." Sam stopped, closed his eyes. Brown hair in curls, that smart little jacket, that soft twang and the no nonsense twitch to her nose and the way his hands fit into the curve of her spine and the way neither of them was any sort of cook and the way dinner came out burnt and they laughed and the way they laid on the hood of the car at night and promised never to give up on this life, unless they were giving up together and that was a lie, that was a lie, that was probably all a lie-- The rest of everyone moved on, but Robbie stood there with him, waiting for an answer. "I just uh. I'm sort of. Getting over someone. I'm not really. Um."
Robbie's frown faded and he blew out a breath in sympathy. "Okay man no sweat. That's rough. Hey maybe me and you go out for a beer when we get back to civilization. Get you back on the horse?"
Sam looked at Robbie, really looked at him. They'd only talked once before, when they were setting out. He asked Sam about his compass, seemed relieved to see Sam had a GPS too. On that basis, people made friends, sure. People made friends. But he and Dean weren't just people, and monsters zeroed in on them on an alarmingly regular basis.
"Sure," Sam said, watching Robbie. "That sounds great."
He watched Robbie more closely over the next hour. They had three clues to find and decipher before nightfall, and their third clue was supposed to lead to the same place the blue team's third clue would lead. Whoever got there first would get the supplies and the cabin, and everyone else had to sleep outside in their pup tents. Of course, he and Dean wouldn't be sleeping at all. What a fun hunt. Why had he insisted on this again?
Right. Because these people were in danger. Because Dean would be excited to have a goatman on his resume.
Except Dean wasn't excited, didn't even think it was a goatman in the first place, and they were split up so these people weren't really all that protected anyway, and they weren't the only people in the huge state forest, and they still didn't know how to kill the thing. So.
Two clues in, Robbie and Bridget laughed ahead of him. Robbie glanced back at Sam and then shared another laugh with Bridget. Sam smiled weakly, tore a green stem off bush as he passed and rolled it up, tossed it away. Not fun. Shouldn't have pushed so hard to get Dean to let them split up. But that was selfish, so selfish. These people-
These people weren't protected anyway, not really. Not by him. Not with the occasional laughter of a sadistic arch-angel just fringing his senses. Not with the sometimes too fast pace of his heart. How had he thought he was capable of this? He'd just hoped, just hoped and he was so selfish-
And then in front of him, the crowd was stopping. Sam looked at his GPS, saw that they were within 30 meters of their target. "Dead tree" was what they'd decoded the previous clue to mean, so they spread out and looked through every dead stump for the little metal box. With fifteen people working on it - Sam just watched - only a handful of seconds went by before a triumphant woman's voice yelled out, "Found it!" and the crowd contracted around her to read the clue and start figuring it out.
The group had a good rhythm to it, many of them were clearly enthusiasts, and even the newbies were quick studies. A subgroup of them took the location clue and starting working on it, math types who were quick at converting measurements. Another group started working in earnest on the text clue which would tell them the clue to finding the key to the cabin once they reached the coordinates. The last one had been in some kind of pictograph code. This one was an alphabet key with some interchanges thrown in for fun. Sam's fingers itched to see it, to try to help, but instead, he watched the perimeter.
And then he smelled it.
"Wow, I didn't think it was supposed to rain," someone said.
Robbie piped up. "It's my fault," he said good-naturedly. "Whenever I'm having a good time, the rain gotta fall."
Laughter. Someone called out, "Thanks a lot, Robbie!" and he laughed back, "No problem, I know you wanted to hike in the rain."
Sam frowned, looked around. Counted them. Three couples. Nine men. Eight women-
His heart sped up. Eight women. Eight women. Which one which one, who who-
He couldn't tell them apart. All of his cataloging, the laughter in the back of his head, telling him that one that one, doesn't she look evil and he couldn't trust that laughter, he couldn't trust himself-
They hiked. Everyone else laughed, and he did not, and they all hiked while he tried to pick her out. She'd be walking odd, she'd be trying too hard. Think of Ava - no no, don't think of Ava, god. The smell followed them, got sweeter, bitter, swampier, thick.
Halfway to the cabin, Sam saw a flash of blue through the treeline. The other team. A whoop, a cry, and suddenly everyone was racing to make the cabin first, and thank god, thank god, except that he still didn't know.
And then she turned to him. Her face odd-held, measuring him, she wasn't running with everyone else, she was fake, and she watched him. They watched each other. And she took off through the forest, not toward the cabin, but toward the blue team, fast as anything, and Sam took off after her, yelling "Dean!"
A scream. A scream. A hundred screams, and when Sam arrived through the underbrush which slowed him, he found six people dead on the ground. The other blue team members were huddled together, staring around and at each other and at the head of them was Dean with Charlie, trying to get control of the situation. The red team was coming from another angle to try to help, and everything was so fast. A blur, and then another terrified person stood there, slashed open in an instant, she hadn't yet realized she was dead.
The smell of blood was overwhelming - overwhelming to him now at the sight of the woman's blue shirt torn open neat as surgery, her guts slumping out of the gash, her arms moving weakly to hold them in. She met his eyes just before she went to her knees and then she was gone into the red mud made of blood and earth. And Lucifer strolled through the scene, smirking, fingerguns like a firing squad at the dead woman, blowing the smoke from his fingertip like he'd killed her, and thank god thank god it was a vision, just a vision not real-
"Sam!" Dean yelled, and Sam looked up, found himself standing still amidst chaos. The woman lay in mud, six others lay in the mud, his shoes squelched in the mud the red red mud and it was real, the whole thing was real. He pulled his gun, sprinted across the field to stand with Dean and Charlie. A few members of his own red team were already there, Robbie and Bridget with their pocket knives out. Robbie did a double take at Sam's gun, then at Dean's.
"Wh-what the hell-"
"Shh," Sam said, trying to listen for the next attack.
It came from behind. Sam felt Charlie spin and - take a shot? He looked at Dean, who shrugged. They turned to find Charlie holding out a tiny little pistol, hands shaking. From what Dean said, she'd been a crack shot when he tested her at the range, but in practice, she appeared to not know exactly what to do with the adrenaline. Who could blame her? Seven people had just been gutted in the span of maybe thirty seconds and lay dead in the dirt around her.
Whatever it was that had made the noise didn't decide to attack. Charlie's shot might have scared it off.
"I'm gonna scout the perimeter," Sam said. "Can you get everyone to the cabin?"
"No idea where the key is," Dean said.
"It's in a tree," Charlie hissed. "Probably that one." She nodded to a tree twenty feet ahead of them, toward the cabin, with distinctive hand-shaped branches reaching up to the sky.
"Our clue said 'This is a stick up,'" Sam said. "Cute."
"I can scale the tree," suggested Charlie. "Super useful when you're the prime target of assassination attempts. Sometimes it's less good to be the queen."
"Okay-" Another rustle. Sam got the idea the thing was just playing with them. It didn't come out, just violently shook the branches of nearby brush. "Toss the key down to Dean and get in the cabin-"
"No fucking way-"
"We're not arguing about this-"
Dean grabbed him by the arm. "No, we aren't." And he threw Sam backward into the group of people, threw him with the kind of force Sam remembered from a dungeon where he wasn't himself, where Dean was convinced his brother was gone somewhere, and Lucifer laughed and said something but Charlie took his elbow then to right him, and he blinked at her.
"Okay," he said. "Okay." The rustling in the bushes got more violent, but it was circling around behind them, Dean leading it with profanities. Sam clapped Robbie on the shoulder, looked between him and Bridget. "You guys get everyone to the cabin. Charlie, run for that tree and don't look back. I got your backs."
Robbie looked shell-shocked. There was blood on his face.
"Bridget," Sam said, watching Robbie. "I think it's up to you. Don't yell. Don't draw attention to yourselves. Go as fast as you can."
Bridget stared at him, but unlike Robbie, nodded. She shoved at Robbie, started tugging the others out of their petrified dazes. Behind them, Dean was making a racket, firing his gun at anything that moved. The violent shaking in the thick underbrush continued to move around behind them, leaving them a straight shot through the forest to the cabin. As one, the mass of blue and red who were still alive fled toward the cabin. A quick glanced confirmed that Charlie had taken off like a shot and was already leaping for the bottommost branch of the tree they suspected the key was hidden in.
Sam turned to cover their six, turned to watch out for Dean. Turned just in time -
To see Dean go down with red arcing into the air.
"Dean!" Sam screamed, and fired a shot at whatever must have thrown him down, whatever was still hiding in the trees. "Come out you bastard!"
"Sammy go!" Dean got up on one elbow. "I'm okay just go!"
Sam ignored him, focused on the rustling. The thing hadn't showed itself, even when it threw Dean back into the clearing. Sam couldn't get a shot if he couldn't see it, and he was loathe to fire off his few remaining silver bullets just in case silver would have some kind of effect.
And all the while, Lucifer murmured to him, words too quiet for him to understand, but it didn't matter, because the fact that he could hear Lucifer meant he wasn't fully present, was distracted. What had Amelia said? Focus on counting down real things, feet on the ground, cool grip of a gun in his hand, the pungent smell of blood all around them, ozone, gagging in his throat, and Dean, saying "Sam?" in that urgent worried voice that meant Dean wasn't focused, and Sam opened his eyes just in time to see the blur.
Dean with a shriek vanished into the underbrush. Sam fired three quick shots, then sprinted after them.
"Dean!" Sam called. He came to a stop a minute into the pursuit, because the sound had died down. "Dean!"
"Sam-!"
Sam took off between the trunks of trees, hurdling fall logs and tangled brush. Dean's voice was muffled, which could have been bad but at least it hadn't echoed much; Sam was able to pinpoint the direction pretty well. The tang of copper weighed down the air, even heavier than in the clearing. The ozone smell went beyond promising rain and skipped right on into burning metal. It was disorienting, which was probably the point. But Sam ran anyway, toward Dean's voice.
He came to a stop minutes later, hanging onto a half-dead tree trunk that was the only thing stopping him from going over the edge of a deep rocky ravine. At the bottom of it, he could see the blue of Dean's backpack. On the rock where his feet skidded to a stop, blood.
Sam stared, looked around the forest, down into the ravine.
"Dean!"
The sharp ozone burn in the air was fading, although the heavy scent of blood remained.
"Deeeeeean!"
"Sam! Sammy!"
Sam whirled around to try to pinpoint the direction, but the sound echoed this time off the rocks of the ravine. Dean cried out again, something choking like he was in pain, and shouted, "Watch out, Sammy!" and Sam spun again to find the source, only to see the thing in the thick of the forest, watching him.
It was a shadow of a thing. He couldn't make out the shape as anything more than vaguely man-like in that it seemed to have a torso and stood upright, but it watched him, and that was unlike any animal he knew, unlike a man either. It made a movement; blood tang surrounded them both and all Sam could see was red and all he could hear was the heart in his throat, and he raised his gun.
"You're the goatman," he said, to buy time.
The thing smiled. Teeth red, the little white things Sam had thought were vine flowers blinked. The thing had a cluster of them on either side, little white eyes that glowed just a bit as the unnatural fog gathered. Rain began to spatter down against the canopy. There was a blur.
Sam got off his shot, saw the strange white ichor of bullet tearing through its arm and spray onto a dark tree trunk. But it came anyway, enraged, slammed him against the half-dead tree that had saved him from a nasty fall. His feet came off the ground, his back slid up the trunk, bark slicking off against his shirt, splinters into his skin; he could feel how hollow and dead the tree behind him was, how it eased back an inch on its dead roots toward the ravine. How precariously perched he was, with this creature's unnaturally strong force pressing on him not just with hands but with this presence, this blood presence that smothered.
The thing had two arms, long long arms with long long fingers, and legs with backwards knee joints - as it dragged him up the trunk of the tree, it stood to its full height, those knee joints unbending, and it was at least two feet taller than Sam himself - and it was dark matte grey all over its skin so that even as it breathed hot copper breath into Sam's face, it looked like it was a shadow, except for the too-white blinking eyes, glowing in the fog.
"Dean," he grunted out, though the thing's arm across his throat made it impossible to call above a whisper. Dean was going to die wherever he was, if he'd fallen, he'd be stuck. Charlie, Charlie please. Sam teased the bright yellow GPS out of his pocket and clicked the transmitter on. Tossed it into the ravine with a prayer: Charlie please find him. And raised his gun with his other hand as the black was closing in.
A shot.
Blackness.