THE EXORCIST

PART 4

"Evil is Someone, Someone who is multiple and whose name is legion... It is one thing to be in the realm of the demons, as we all are when we have lost the state of grace, and quite another to be held and surrounded, literally possessed by him."

Legion walked the Earth. He could see it in every mother who sold her baby for crack; he could see it in every father who defiled his daughter or son's bed with vile intents; he could see it in every depravity of man with beast, of man with man. Boundaries broken and mocked like they were made of snow, melted away under the heat of flesh and animal urges.

Murder, rape, depravity in every corner, treated like normal things of every day life; nothing but scorn and contempt for the Lord above, nothing but disregard and disobedience for those who guarded His word on Earth.

It was no wonder to the Shepherd that the angels had searched him for help. So many others did.

For years, he had done the Lord's work with nothing but faith to sustain his beliefs. Where others had faltered and accused him of being a murderer, of being insane, his faith had stood strong and prevailed. And his reward had been magnificent.

Zachariah, the angel who talked with him, had visited during the night. A bright star of celestial light that had flooded the small cell that he had taken as his living quarters and filled him with the grace of the Lord.

The Shepherd had been chosen, the angel had confided in him; chosen to serve Heaven in a very important quest. Find Dean Winchester.

The reasons why Heaven wanted such a man found were not given and he knew it was not his place to ask. Just obey.

This was his test and he would not fail to fulfill the task placed on his shoulders. He need only wait for the sign that he was sure God would send to him; to be alert and ready to complete his mission.

The commands left to him by the angel were simple: pray as fervently as he could when he laid eyes on Dean and stay clear of the man's path. The Shepherd, however, was not like other men; he did not bow down from his responsibilities and when faced with evil, he did not run away like a dog with his tail between his legs. He fought it.

Word that a town overridden by demons had reached his congregation. Legion was about and it stomped the Earth with bitter boots in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Casting demons out of people was what he did best; there was no other choice but to abandon familiar grounds and take the fight to where it was needed.

How he had not seen that as a sign from above, he did not know, but finding Dean Winchester amongst a pack of demons in Blue Earth had not surprised him that much. The Lord was sometimes complex; others, painfully simple.

Zachariah had filled his mind with everything he needed to know about Dean. What he looked like, who he traveled with, which car he drove, even what he liked to eat.

When a black, '67 Impala sped past him, running from Blue Earth, there had been no doubts in his mind that God had put him in the right path and that he had found the right man.

Once Dean Winchester was in his possession, it was clear why the angels had warned him about this man. It was like staring into the heart of pure evil.

The Shepherd could sense the demons inside Dean, could feel them struggling and scratching their way to the surface. Of all the people he had helped so far, Dean seemed to be the worst case he'd ever encountered.

Satan's grip was so deeply and strongly engraved inside Dean Winchester that the mere touch by someone with a pure soul was bound to leave a mark on Dean's skin. It had been an accident, the Shepherd knew that, but he could see the handprint brand that his touch had left on Dean's shoulder.

Following that, he was very careful to not touch Dean again. After all, he was there to rescue him, not cause him harm.

He had used all of his skills, prayed as hard and heartfelt as he could. And yet the demons refused to leave Dean's soul.

Evil, when confronted with a stronger force, with a touch from God, retracts, like all cowardly things are bound to do. The Shepherd had been too forgiving; too lenient towards Dean and the demons in him had used that weakness to escape.

His followers, gentle and illuminated people that they were, had been a bit... over-enthusiastic in capturing Dean Winchester.

He crunched down on the church's floor, near the one standing pew. The figure draped over it was still unconscious, breathing made heavier by the accentuate angle of his chest.

He had used ropes this time. The chains had proven useless on this one, it would seem. Even so, there was no escaping now. Not with both hands and feet bound as they were.

The position, painful as it looked, was as unavoidable as it was effective. The ropes around the wrists were secured to the ring on the floor, while those binding his ankles were connected to a second ring, all that was left of a third row pew. Between the two rings, the sinner was effectively stretched on his back, seemingly hanging in the air with his back supported by the remaining pew.

The Shepherd hated this part of the process, but in most cases, it was unavoidable. Rarely did the early attempts at cleansing succeed in purifying the soul.

The rod and the cilice, although crude, did their work in softening the demons' hold on these poor souls, earthly objects made holy by their use and purpose. But the snakes were never wrong and they knew their own kind.

No.

For most part, the cleansing needed to go deeper than skin before the Good Word could do as it was intended and free sinners from their burden.

Water.

Water cleaned all sins.

"How'd you find it?" Sam asked as he heard Bobby and Castiel join him by the damaged Impala. He'd opened the driver's door, peeking inside for any sign that could help them find Dean. The smear of blood on the window hadn't escaped his notice.

"I do work in the business, ya' known," Bobby reminded him. "Still got a few contacts in the area. Told them to be on the look out for any classic black cars that showed up in their radars."

"Where?"

"Just off the 290, near Cicero."

"He was going to see Lisa," Sam said with a sad look. He had been right; Dean had been on a farewell tour before someone had driven him off the road.

"Who?" Bobby asked, rolling away to give Sam some room as he went to the trunk. "The weapons are all there, I assume… the compartment's still locked."

Sam nodded. Dean would be pissed if they had to start their 'collection' from scratch. It was bad enough that he would have to repair the Impala yet again… "Lisa Braeden," he explained the older hunter, even though Cass also looked curious. "She and Dean had a…" wildsexweekend, "… thing, a couple of years back. She has a kid… we drive by once in awhile, to check up on them."

"Dean's kid?" Bobby asked with a raised brow.

"She says no," Sam answered in a tone that told Bobby how much that detail didn't matter. Dean had a soft spot for that family; enough for them to be a part of his dreams, even if that was something Sam was sure his brother wouldn't want him sharing. "The car's clean."

"Aside for the tree-shaped ass in the front and Dean's blood all over the driver's seat, you mean" Bobby added. "This guy has been too careful and methodical to slip up now."

"I guess," Sam said, disappointed. "Can you… I don't know, catch a vibe or something off of it?" he asked the silent angel.

Castiel canted his head to the side, momentarily confused by Sam's words. "The car is still. There are no… vibes."

"I meant from the guy who took Dean," Sam clarified. It was hard getting used to Castiel's… shortcomings where it concerned the English language.

"I can sense the souls of every person that has ever driven or touched this car," Castiel supplied. "There are thousands of them. It is impossible to tell which one caused this."

Sam ran a hand through his hair. It was a long shot, but they were literally grasping at straws here. And Dean was out there, somewhere, in the hands of a crazy bastard. Just minutes ago, he had been sure that he was going to find Dean's corpse in that graveyard. Sam was not going to give fate a second chance at making that nightmarish event become real. "That's it," he vented, closing the Impala's door with a bang. "I'm done with the sensible route, Bobby. We're doing the séance. Now."

"There's still some files we haven't checked," Bobby reasoned, even as his voice lacked the initial conviction. The sight of Dean's blood, flecking from the closed window was a hard argument to ignore. "Maybe there's something in there that—"

"No," Sam simply said. "The cops are never going to catch this guy, and neither are we if we stick to the rules."

"You don't know that, son."

Sam focused his gaze on the older man, resolve and anger seeping to the surface. "This Exorcist, this murderer," he spat, "he has people helping him out. Followers who call him good shepherd and do his bidding as a good herd of sheep. Maybe all they do is lure the victims in, maybe they're even involved in the torture," he explained. "But the point is that the police don't even have a clue about their existence or that they might be looking at more than one killer. And when they do get a clue, it will take them months, if not years to infiltrate this guy's flock. It's been five days already, Bobby," he pleaded. "We're doing this now or all we'll see of Dean is a corpse with an open rib cage."

There was a crow staring down at him, head bent forward and dark wings neatly tucked by his side, perched up high on a ceiling beam.

Dean swallowed, dry mouth pouring dust down his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed awkwardly up and down, stretched too thin on his extended neck.

For a fleeting second, Dean was sure he'd fallen asleep on Bobby's lame-assed study chair again. It had to be the wooden one, the damn thing never failed to make his ass sore and with the too short back, that always meant a sore neck when Dean woke up from his impromptus naps.

There were no crows in Bobby's house, however. And he was definitely not sitting.

The awkwardness of his position registered with Dean's short-firing neurons soon enough. He was on his back, balanced like a counterweight on top of something solid and cold, his head and torso angling down to counter the weight of his legs, extended in the air.

Dean pulled at the bindings holding his arms extended. The thick ropes coiled around his wrists tightened and his left one exploded in pain.

It was like a switch, flipping in his brain and casting light over what had happened and where he was.

The woods.

The damn camp of freaks that fell down on him like a pack of wolves.

Dean looked around, dizzy to find the world upside down. He was back in the abandoned church. Back with the insane man who cut out people's eyes.

"You shouldn't have run," the man's voice, growing to be annoyingly familiar by now, sounded from somewhere south of Dean's legs. "For you, nothing has changed; for my followers, however, it was an… unpleasant surprise."

Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Odds were, that too would hurt. "What? Did I burst their bubble of illusion of how buckets of crazy their leader really is?"

It took a moment for Dean to identify the mirthless, dry noise that the other man let out, as a laugh. "Do not elude yourself, Dean Winchester. You are not the victim in this and neither are my followers' misguided people who are not aware of what my work compromises. In time, they too will be ready to carry the burden."

Dean meant to snort at the load of crap he was being fed, but the position and the dust in the air were doing a number on his throat and all that he managed was a nasty cough that ripped through his body in waves of pain. "Shit!"

"I wish I didn't have to do this," the man said, entering Dean's limited field of vision. "But you leave me no other choice."

Dean hated to admit it even to himself, but he dreaded to find out what that lunatic was carrying in his hands this time around. After being beaten, bitten and flogged, the three-gallon water bottle seemed innocent enough. The leather strap hanging from diaper-man's other hand, however, looked anything but.

"Hey... hey, now!" Dean wheedled, eyeing the ring gag hanging from the other man's fingers. While he hated the fact that his voice broke even as he spoke, there was no denying that the sight of the ring gag left him more than a little freaked out. "I thought you were all pro-celibacy and crap like that." Swallowing at the unease, he continued, "What's with the sex toys?"

The other man looked at the contraption he has holding. He seemed disgusted just from touching it. "A necessary evil," he said. "The demons will fight and resist the cleansing; this will ensure that you are not denied the chance of redemption by their actions."

Dean had no idea what the guy was on about, but it sounded screwed up in all kinds of ways. "Look... whatever you're thinking you have to do, you don't. You really, really don't," he started, rushing words out, as the other man got closer and closer. His neck ached from the strain of lifting his head and his back was on fire for the overtaxed muscles, but at the moment all that he could think was that he had to stop whatever was coming up next. "Did an angel tell you to do this?" Dean went on, remembering what the others had said in the camp. "Was it Zachariah? That guy is a dick, you really can't trust a word that comes out of his mou—"

The rest of Dean's words were pushed back down his throat by the metal ring being shoved inside his mouth. It knocked against his teeth with a scrapping sound, filling Dean's mouth with a taste of cold iron. The straps in the back were lithely done behind his head, hair trapped in the leather and pulling at his skull.

"Ghwt twis swith awwth!" Dean protested as loud and hard as he could, his eyes conveying all the hatred his 'words' failed to pass along.

It was the oddest of sensations; he could waggle his tongue all he wanted, but no words were forming because he couldn't move his lips even an inch.

Diaper-man –and Dean really, really didn't wanted to think about the fact that only a flimsy piece of cloth separated that lunatic's nuts from Dean's wide opened and locked mouth- ignored his mangled protests as he stood above Dean's head. He was doing that open-arms, head-tilted-back weird thing of his. Praying for illumination, Dean figured. Was it too much to ask for that illumination to come down in the form of a lightning bolt right about now?

Dean struggled against his bindings, hating the fact that he was as vulnerable here and now as he had been for all of his stay in Hell. God! even the damn way he was stretched out beyond his muscles abilities felt like the damn rack.

There had been days when Alastair's knife wasn't even needed. All the demon had to do was pull the wheel on the rack and stretch, stretch, stretch until Dean could feel cartilage tearing, muscle ripping and blood start to flow. Then Alastair used his knife.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the memories away. The last thing he needed right now was a trip down memory lane on top of the fucked up situation he had going on there.

When he opened his eyes again, Dean had an epiphany.

There was a plastic rosary inside the water bottle. It swished around the bottom as the lunatic raised it from the floor and placed it above Dean's head.

With a sudden and certain clarity, Dean realized two things: that was meant to be holy water and, with his mouth gaping open like that and his head tilted back as it was, he was going to drown in it.

"Pick one," Bobby said as they entered the motel room. He rolled to the bed they'd been using as an extra table and grabbed the pile of folders that sat on the mattress. "I'll go round up the supplies."

Sam moved to the bed with a sigh. His feet dragged over the threadbare carpet like they weighed a hundred pounds each. He knew what Bobby was doing, and he really couldn't blame the older man.

Of over a dozen people who'd been tortured and murdered, who do you chose to disrupt their eternal rest on top of everything else? Who do you call back to Earth to ask questions they might not know the answer to? Who do you elect to turn into a restless spirit fully aware that you might have to end the night burning their remains?

Bobby wasn't going to stop him from doing it, but he sure as hell wasn't doing Sam's dirty work for him either.

Sam flipped through the files, skimming the information. If it weren't for the fact that they needed to plan ahead and find themselves a witness that they could easily put to rest afterwards, Sam would've just closed his eyes and randomly picked one.

But two of the victims had been hookers, a man and a woman, and when neither body had been claimed, the city had arranged for their cremation.

Four others, two drug addicts, a stripper and a drug dealer had been shipped back to their respective families, outside of the Chicago area. One had even been shipped out of the country, back to his homeland, in Peru.

The gay bartender from District 5 had also been cremated, according to his written wishes.

Sam stared at Dolores Groton's file. The face of her husband, eyes guilt-ridden and heart-broken, were still fresh in his memory. She was also one of the few buried in Chicago.

'She's already dead' Sam reminded himself, 'Dean's still alive and she can do something about it'.

The arguments were good; Sam knew that on an intellectual level. In his heart, though, he knew this was wrong. Very wrong.

"We're ready," Bobby called out from the actual table. Castiel sat by his side, silent, waiting for a name that could lead them to Dean.

A linen cloth had been placed over the cheap plastic table; the candles were in place, waiting to be lit.

"Let's call Dolores Groton," Sam said, taking his seat heavily.

Dean could only think that irony was a bitch. A vengeful bitch, at that. After all, he'd been dying of thirst for days now, right?

Somehow, having three gallons of water force-poured down his airways was not Dean's idea of quenching his thirst.

After that quick realization, all rational thought abandoned him. All Dean could do was try and breathe through the onslaught of water.

It was an impossible task.

His mouth being pushed wide open by the damn ring gag, the only way of escape Dean had was to turn his face to the side, hoping most of the water missed the opening.

It stood to reason that Dean hadn't been the first one to try that. Or that this was the first time that man had dealt with someone in this manner, a person trying to survive the damn water onslaught. And failing.

That explained the ease with which Dean's head was swiftly trapped in between the man's knobby knees, effectively preventing him from turning away. The hold also freed the guy's hands to hold the bottle above Dean's head. No where to run, no way of stopping what was happening.

Complete loss of control and power. It scared the crap out of Dean.

It was like being held under water. The downpour of liquid got everywhere. Dean's mouth, his nose, his eyes...

He swallowed as much as he could, hoping to catch a lungful of air in between gulps, but all his lungs were supplied with was water as well.

Dean's throat spasmed, gag reflex being hit time after time. The urge of bile upwards was swiftly washed away by the water coming in the opposite direction.

Time meant nothing now. The world around him was rapidly losing focus and color. He'd seen the water bottle; it was only three gallons, which meant that only a couple of seconds could've gone by. To Dean's battered and abused body, however, it felt like minutes; hours. It felt like he was dying for the longest of time.

When the water did stop, Dean was still choking on what was trapped in his throat and the gallon or so that his stomach was trying to push back up.

The man in diapers released his head. The second Dean felt the pressure on his temples loosen, he immediately turned his head to the side, and vomited what felt like the whole three gallons of water.

Now that he had a chance to breath, Dean found that he couldn't. He was coughing and wheezing and try as he might, there was not enough air going through.

He wanted to scream at the man to stop, wanted to tell him that, whatever Zachariah had said, the angel would probably get a little pissed when he finds out that this man had killed Dean. But there wasn't enough breath in his lungs to form any words, and even if there were, the damn gag spreading his lips wouldn't let him speak them.

The world was spinning and Dean had no safety bar to grab onto.

Out of the corner of his vision, Dean could see the man coming back to his side. There was another large water bottle dangling from his hand.

Dean couldn't help but whimper.

There were ways to call out spirits and there were ways of calling out spirits. If it were about calling a restless spirit, trapped on Earth and wandering about, either way would get the same results. Even a simple Ouija Board would do the trick.

If the spirit had already moved on, like they're supposed to do, the less traumatic way to talk to one was through a psychic, a medium. They were like human 'supernatural radio-antennas', with the ability to tune into the other side and report back the answers.

The alternative was to reel a spirit in, snag it from the other side and back to the world of the living.

"You sure about this, Sam?" Bobby asked one last time, his face more concerned than angry now.

Sam could see in the other man's expression that he agreed with him, and while neither of them liked it, they could at least agree on one thing; they'd run out of options, and more importantly, Dean was running out of time even faster.

"Light the candles," Sam said and reached over to grab Castiel's hand. Once the candles were glowing softly, Bobby set down the lighter and did the same.

Sam couldn't help but noticed, as he grabbed the angel's cold hand, that Cass was now where Dean sat the last time they'd done something like this. That time, they'd had an actual medium to help them out, Pamela, and she'd lost her eyes, trying to catch just a glimpse of Castiel.

Sam hoped they didn't lose something worse searching for his brother.

The lights had been turned off, but the room was hardly in the dark. The soft glow of the three candles and the red neon light that came through the window, cast deep shadows in the faces of the three men seated at the table. Bobby, small piece of paper resting on the table by his side, began reciting the Latin invocation that would summon the spirit of the Dolores Groton to their midst.

Before the older hunter could say more than one 'Invocatis', Cass pulled his hands free to clutch at his head. His face scrunched up in pain.

"Cass?" Sam called out, tentatively reaching out a hand to touch the angel's tense shoulder. "What is it?"

"Dean," he gasped. "There's too many of them..."

And with that he was gone.

Sam stared dumbstruck at Bobby, the older man's face mirroring his confusion.

"T'hell was that?"

Sam's eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose. "I have n—too many Deans?" he ventured, trying to figure out what the angel had been trying to say before he'd flapped his wings and vanished.

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't it," Bobby let out. His gaze caught on the flickering flames of the candles, hand coming up to scratch his beard. "Now what?"

Sam bit his bottom lip. Wherever Cass had run to, it had something to do with Dean. "I guess we wait for him to come back."

When he leaned forward to blow the candles out, the red, neon glow was all that was left. It made the whole room seem bathed in blood.

The Good Shepherd had been pleased with their diligent work. When he had been called, after the group had managed to subdue Dean Winchester, there had been words of praise as well as concern.

The Good Shepherd worried about them and feared what might happen to their pure souls if they'd been exposed to the demons inside Dean for much longer. Especially the young ones.

He needn't have worried though; the group was exalted by the feeing of being useful, of making the world a safer place, of helping the one who carried the burden of their safety without a word of complaint.

"Let us join in prayer, my brothers," Tim, the unspoken group leader, called out.

They gathered around the larger fire pit, hands joined in communion, faces filled with the cleansing warmth of fire.

"Let us pray for the strength necessary to conquer our enemies," Tim called out, his eyes closed as he waited for the others to repeat his words.

"Lets us pray for wisdom to follow our Shepherd without fear." "Let us pray for Dean Winchester... may his soul be free from sin once again." "Let us pray for our Good Shepherd, may he—"

"Yes, yes, that's quite enough," a voice broke through the quiet chanting, disrupting the cadence. The group looked as one towards the large man in a business suite, who stood leaning against one of the trees, arms folded in front of his chest. "Now, where can I find this... Good Shepherd of yours?"

"Who are you?" Tim asked, starting to rise to his feet. Was it possible that they would have two tests to pass on the same night? Was this yet another demon?

The man in the suite rolled his eyes, looking bored. He extended one arm, pointing at a random tree branch. In the otherwise calm night, the crackle of a lightning bolt sounded like an exploding bomb.

The people gathered around the fire screamed and jump to their feet, not sure whether to run or throw themselves at the mercy of that powerful and mysterious 'man'.

The tree branch fell to the ground in an array of smoldering ambers and the man in the suite blew on his finger, pretending to hold an invisible smoking gun. "I'm someone that really hates been kept waiting," he said with a pointed look. His hand, finger extended, rummaged through the frightening group, like it was loaded and ready to fire again. "Now... where is this Shepherd of yours and where is he keeping Dean Winchester?"

The call had been so loud that Castiel had felt like a balloon had exploded inside his head. Prayers were usually quite and soothing, gentle voices raised to the Heavens in contemplation and faith.

Maybe it was the fervor with which these voices were calling out, or maybe it was the fact that Castiel had been keeping an... 'eye out', as Dean would've said, to any chatter carrying the hunter's name.

He had not expected more than twenty voices to do it at the exact same time.

Not wasting time explaining himself to either Sam or Bobby, Castiel had flown to the source of the call. He had hoped that he would find Dean Winchester when he'd arrived at the spot in the middle of the trees, but all he saw was a group of humans, sitting around a fire.

He was about to make his presence known and demand to know what those people knew about Dean's whereabouts when another angelic presence made itself visible.

Zachariah.

Of course he had been paying attention to the calls as well. The superior angel was completely invested in delivering Dean to Michael and seemed willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goal.

Castiel kept himself out of view as Zachariah proceeded to terrify the group of humans into telling him where Dean was.

Misguided souls, led into atrocious actions by another, much like the habitants of Blue Earth who'd been deceived by the Whore, the group stood its ground even in the face of Zachariah's most theatrical displays of power. It was almost worthy of respect, were it no for the reasons behind their choice.

When Zachariah lost his patience and unfolded his wings for all to see and realize what he was, Castiel couldn't help but to think back to when he'd been forced to do the same to prove his claims, back when he had first encountered a flesh and blood Dean. Convincing his soul, trapped in Alastair's clutches, that Castiel was an angel of the Lord had been much easier, but then again, Dean had had no choice in the matter back then, no when the angel had grabbed him and flown them both out of Hell.

The sight of Zachariah's wings was met with a much different reaction than the one Dean had shown in that abandoned shed.

Most people of the group fell to their knees, awestruck by the sight of an angel. The others were too stunned and fearful to react.

One thing they all had in common. After that, there was no keeping them quiet about Dean's whereabouts.

The second Castiel had heard his friend's location, he was gone without a glance behind.

tbc