The Impala parked in front of a dilapidated 70's style home, complete with garden gnomes and a rattling screen door. The surrounding suburban neighborhood seemed eerily abandoned at noon, most driveways devoid of cars. It took Caterina a few moments to realize that the reason for that was simple everyday life. Normal kids, unlike her, were at school, and adults were all at work.
"Will Chuck answer the door if we ring the doorbell?" she asked, getting out of the car.
Sam raised his binoculars and peered at the two houses flanking Chuck's childhood home. "Who knows." He strode toward the house on the left and signaled to the house on the right. "You go check out that one. If no one answers the door, pick the lock."
"What about me?" Cas leaned on the roof of the shiny black car. "I could just fly inside."
Sam relented. "Go with Caterina."
She and the angel approached the front door. Cas pushed the doorbell. No one responded, so he tried again. Still, no response. Cas grabbed Caterina's arm and flew them just inside the house. What lay within was shocking.
There was absolutely no furniture inside the home, the once-glossy finishing on the wood floor scratched and scored with what looked like burns and skid marks. A side window was left open, the wind opening and closing the shutters with chary bangs.
Caterina headed into a hallway, running her fingers along the bare walls. She stepped into the first room and sucked in a quick breath when her finger caught on a splinter. This room, too, was completely empty. She stamped her foot on the floor testily and coughed when a large cloud of dust rose up into the air.
She explored the other rooms in the house. The bathroom's granite counters were stained with what looked like rust and spilled coffee. Twisting the sink knobs, Caterina backed away when the faucet spluttered and hacked. After a few seconds, it started to vomit murky copperish water, the dirty liquid splashing up the sides of the ceramic sink bowl. She reached over and turned off the water, thinking. The house looked maintained on the outside, but why would anyone go through all the effort to maintain an empty house that hadn't been lived in for years?
"Caterina!"
Startled, she followed the sound of Castiel's voice until she found herself in the kitchen. Cas pointed at a fluttering packet of papers held down only by a brick. "Chuck left us a clue."
She stared at it, pulling it out from under the makeshift paperweight. "It's a manuscript," she noted, flipping through the pages. "Reichenbach. What does that mean?"
"It's a reference to Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock Holmes fell and died. He was resurrected shortly after because of fan complaints."
"Resurrected?" An image of Dean, seething and vengeful, clouded her vision.
Cas gritted his teeth. "The papers are Chuck's account of recent events. They say Crowley resurrected Dean in the form of a demon."
She choked. "What? Can- can we save him?"
"It's not impossible," he said, both reluctant and thoughtful.
She jittered. "What are we waiting for, then?"
His eyes clouded over, making him look more like a weary man in that moment than like an angel. "There haven't been any successful attempts," he said. "At least not one that doesn't result in deaths."
She didn't care. "It's my fault he's in this mess. It's my job to get him out." She stuffed the manuscript into her satchel and considered.
"Hey, Cas," she wondered, "The curse — or ritual, or spell, or whatever, that Crowley and Golchen did — didn't it only require a Winchester? So if Dean got the job done..." she let the question hang. She couldn't bring herself to finish it, not when the rest of it seemed almost too vast to contain in words.
"Then why do you exist?" Cas finished, uncertain.
She nodded. Why I was made. Why I was created. Why my blood was mixed from the cells of generations and bloodlines. Why "born" and "conceived" take on a different meaning when it comes to me. She tore her eyes from the blank she'd been staring at and looked at the angel.
"I don't know. Maybe," he sighed, "he wasn't quite enough. Maybe the sacrifice wasn't quite complete."
"But it worked."
"We don't know that," he intoned, inclining his head. There was his angelic presence again, simmering with defiance and hope through the pores in his skin and his scruffy old coat.
"Don't know what?"
They both swiveled their heads to greet Sam. His feet were heavy on the dusty floorboards, sending creaks throughout the house.
Caterina pulled the now-slightly-crumpled manuscript from her bad and handed it over to him. "Dean's a demon now."
The effect was immediate. She had thought Sam was upset before, moodily jumping from job to job in hopes of bringing back his brother. But now, she saw, that was only denial and depression. This was fury.
The Impala tore down interstates, rocketing down empty country freeways at what felt like twice the speed limit. Gravel dinged at the underside of the car, shocking Caterina awake every time her eyes drooped.
"Where are we going?" she'd asked when Sam first heard the news. His face had been shocked, or maybe betrayed. A lifetime of hunting evil, and now his brother was made of it.
"To the bunker," he'd replied. Her first thought was of an apocalyptic one, an underground fortress to shield her and Cas as Sam set fire to the world above. "There are books there." He was a fault line, ready to plunder cities and oceans without a moment's notice.
"I'm getting him back."
Now, he pulled up at the side of a road that was blanketed on both sides by spindly green trees. It was reminiscent of Bierstadt, or Durand. A red brick semicircle nestled in a dip in the ground, just off the side of the road. It wasn't really what Caterina had expected for a supernatural bunker, more like a wine cellar than a fortress or a library. But she hadn't really expected anything to begin with, so she suspected that this was as much of a bunker as anything.
Sam had the keys in his pocket, but that meant nothing to Castiel. He might've flown the whole car in, if he felt like it, but Sam was untouchable today. The angel and the girl backed up as Sam jabbed the key into the lock.
She was not a little shocked when she stepped inside. The walls were illuminated by a warm yellow light from the multitude of lamps. Shelves and shelves of books lined the walls and rich brown reading tables were dispersed over the glossy floors. Everything looked new, like a cozy cabin in the Sierras, or a library inspired by antique aesthetics. It was utterly the least creepy place she'd ever seen.
Sam set his messenger bag on the closest table, a relaxed motion despite his current demeanor. There was something strange about it at first, but then Caterina realized why. Sam felt at home, a concept Caterina hadn't even realized was possible for him. She almost thought he would head for the kitchen to make tea or order pizza. He marched to the bookshelves instead.
Silently, Cas tugged on Caterina's arm, leading her away. He had been here before and it was obvious from the practiced way he rounded the endless corners and dimly lit corridors. She wondered how far out this bunker spread, how deep underground it burrowed. They arrived at a guest room, complete with furniture that looked like it had been scrubbed just this morning by room service, although that was by all accounts unlikely.
"You can drop your stuff here," Cas said. "Did you find any clues in the manuscript?"
Was she going to stay here? She just nodded, unwilling to part with her satchel just yet. "There were no obvious markers," she replied. "I'm reading through it, trying to see if there are any textual clues."
Cas seemed to find this satisfactory. "I'll bring your belongings," he said, then disappeared. He came back not five seconds later, her duffel in his hand. He dropped it on the floor. "You know where to find us when you're ready." Then he left again, this time without returning.
She closed the door. It was a force of habit — nothing could stop Cas invading her privacy but dramatic Enochian spells painted in blood. She wasn't feeling up to that level of commitment currently.
Reclining on the ready-made bed uncomfortably, Caterina paged through the manuscript. She'd made it about halfway through until Sam's passionate driving had made her carsick. She picked up at Dean's first adventure back on earth, a bar fight and the rather unfortunate death of an ill-intentioned gambler.
A paragraph caught her eye.
"His eye glinted. This one is for you. 'God isn't real,' Dean said. 'And if he was, he'd have been there to save my mom.' Although, truth is where you go to find it."
She read it again. This one is for you. Truth is where you go to find it. That wasn't the clue, though. If anything, those two sentences were clues to the real clue — he'd have been there to save my mom. But where was there? She took out her phone and sent a picture of those lines to Sam and Cas. Then she kept reading.
There wasn't much after that, but she read the acknowledgements just to make sure. It was short, but from what she knew of Chuck, it wasn't surprising.
"I'd like to thank the usual people, and the toils of Castiel and the Winchesters, without whom my career would be nonexistent. And I'd like to thank God and encourage you to, too. If He didn't exist, I wouldn't either."
She liked the way it was worded, carefully acknowledging them without letting the untrained reader think anything of it but as a humorous nod toward fictional characters. Stretching, she decided it was high time to go join society. Or what she could scavenge of it, anyway.
She nearly got lost twice before she emerged in the main library area.
Sam was hunched over a table a mug forgotten by his hand. She considered approaching him, then thought better of it when she saw the expression he leveled at the inanimate pages.
Cas waved her over to the stairs. "I consulted Sam," he said, "And we're going to have to go to Lawrence, Kansas."
The name sounded vaguely familiar. "How far away is it?" She paused. "Wait, which state are we in?"
"Three or four hours," Cas said. "And we are, actually, in Kansas."
She glanced back at Sam. "Are we leaving... now?" He didn't look like he was going to be moving anytime soon.
"Yes."
"Are... you driving?"
"No."
"Can I?"
"Definitely not."
"Then how—"
He touched her arm and she was no longer inside the bunker, but outside a vintage-looking suburban home. The grass was drying on this lawn, but the houses to the right and left looked kept and lived in. Would this be another empty house?
There was no car in the driveway. It was dark out and the streetlights lit circles on the pavement. Every house on the block had blinds drawn and light filtering through the windows but this one, although Caterina thought she saw a faint glow in the back somewhere. Or maybe it was just the house on the other side of the street.
"Do we go in?"
Cas made a motion that was very Dean-like. Stay close to me. He must have picked it up from him.
She dug a hand around in her bag until her fingers felt the chilly surface of a revolver she'd stolen from the Impala's trunk. Her hand closed around it protectively as she trailed Cas to the front door.
Once on the porch, the two glanced at each other. Cas lifted a finger to the doorbell. He didn't press it.
The door opened.
A sharp breath was drawn from beside her. Was this the prophet? Finally?
He was forty, maybe, with a rugged sort of beard and greasy pajamas.
"Hi," he said. "You can call me Chuck. My real name's a little pretentious."
"Like Charles?" Caterina asked, unsure if she should have.
He only smiled. "Like God."
A/N: Here is the long-awaited update! I'm so sorry it literally took me a year to post this! Please comment, like, and share!
P.S. If you're a returning reader, please go back to read the prologue/first chapter. I just added the prologue. :)