A/n: Thanks again to the Beta Branch crew for their feedback, edits, and encouragement, as always. :D Enjoy part 2!
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Castiel took them to the first (and safest) place he thought of, dumping Meg rather unceremoniously onto the small threadbare carpet by the kitchen table.
"What was that?" he demanded. "Who was that?"
"Geez, give a girl a second to get her breath back," said Meg, getting to her feet. "Some of us aren't used to traveling by… whatever you call that."
Cas was in no mood to play around. "Meg, what is going on. You stated you had important information for me about the Winchesters and then a man showed up – "
"No need for the recap, sports fan, I was there too, remember?"
"Are they in trouble?" he asked sharply. "Do they need my help?"
"I suppose that depends on your definition of trouble." Meg smiled coyly at him.
Castiel sighed through his nose and speedily crossed the kitchen to grasp Meg tightly by the arm. Ignoring her protests (and noting her general lack of strength with a bit of surprise), Cas hauled her across the threshold into the living room, and deposited her in the center of the devil's trap painted on the living room floor.
No one else seemed to be in the house, as he suspected they would have come running by now if they had been.
"The hell, Castiel!" she barked at him, rubbing at the red marks on her arm left by his fingers. "I am trying to help!"
"So you say."
"Have I ever lied to you?" she drawled at him, the corners of her lips turning up into that annoying I've-got-a-secret-and-don't-you-wish-you-knew-it smile he had grown accustomed to seeing on the faces she wore. She tipped her head in the direction of the devil's trap. "This really necessary?"
"Yes," he replied in a clipped tone. "If you're trying to help, then help. If you're not going to reveal the identity of the being that attempted to attack us in the garden, then explain why you came to me in the first place."
She examined her nails. "Maybe I've changed my mind. Maybe I don't want to after all."
Castiel clenched his jaw tightly. And this, again, was exactly why he hated demons.
Casper, Wyoming
Sam drove them back to the motel, because when Dean grabbed the driver's door handle, he accidentally pulled it off (and exclaimed like he'd yanked off his own limb). He gingerly settled into the passenger's seat then (after Sam opened the door for him, and was trying not to openly laugh too hard), and very carefully kept his hands clasped in his lap so he didn't further injure Baby. Even so, Dean could not seem to wipe the grin off of his face.
"Super strength, man!" said Dean.
Sam opened the door to their motel room and closed it behind them, ensuring Dean didn't do any damage.
"This is the best thing that has ever happened to me," the blond hunter laughed. "I feel like summoning Crowley right here, right now, and punching him across the state line just because I can."
"Dean…" Sam began warily.
His brother whooped loudly and went to the kitchenette to get a beer from the fridge. He grasped the handle and it crunched in his hand as easily as if it were made of paper.
"Oops…" he grimaced and attempted to open the fridge door gently, but it popped off its hinges.
"Dean!" Sam admonished. "We're going to have to pay for that!"
"Sorry, I don't know my own strength!" Dean laughed again and reached for a beer. The first one he grabbed shattered in his hands, spraying beer and glass all over the floor and the fridge's interior. Sam really wasn't finding this as funny as his brother, who was still grinning as he gripped a second bottle much more carefully.
"This is awesome, this is so awesome…" said the blond as he one-handedly set the fridge door back into place. "Now as long as no one tries to open it, it'll be fine, see?"
"Dean," Sam began in warning.
The blond tried to twist open his beer and proceeded to break the neck of the bottle off. "Whoops," he laughed and reached for the cupboard to get a cup for his beer instead.
"Dean, don't touch anything else! Stop and sit down for a second, will you?" Sam said with exasperation. "Look, this is cool and all, but it's also scary as hell – we don't know what's causing it or why."
"Does it matter?" Dean spun to face his brother, still grinning. "I'm Superman! Wait, I wonder if I'm invincible too."
He abandoned the broken beer bottle in the sink, and raced over to his bags and weapons to retrieve a knife. Dean rolled up his sleeve and pressed the blade to his bare forearm. He pushed harder when nothing happened, then flipped the knife so the point was against his skin. He made a stabbing motion at his own arm, but the metal wouldn't penetrate.
"Oh my God, I really am Superman!" Dean's grin was even wider than before.
"You're not even listening to me," said Sam with a worried sigh.
Dean waved the knife in his brother's direction. "Sammy, stop raining on my parade. You're just jealous that you didn't wake up with legit super powers this morning."
"Actually, I'm just worried about where the hell these… powers came from."
"I feel great! I'm on fire – I have literally never felt better. I want to go… rip something apart, just because I can!" Dean paced the room, flexing his hands, bursting with energy and excitement. "Just think of all the awesome things I'll be able to do now!"
Sam bit his lip. "I think we should call Bobby."
"No way," Dean scowled. "It's bad enough I've got you pooping on this little development, I don't need him doing it too."
"So you agree something is messed up here?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "Can I just enjoy it, for one damn second?"
Sam chuckled. "Yeah, fine. Enjoy it. I'm going to try to figure out what's killing people in Casper, but you… you revel in being a so-called super hero. Fingers crossed you don't spontaneously die because we don't actually know what's happening to you."
Dean glared at Sam who all-too-innocently crossed the room and opened up his laptop to do some research.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Castiel looked around Bobby's living room. He could guess at some of what it had seen in its lifetime. Monsters and demons and all other sorts of foul creatures had been put down with extreme prejudice. Tears had been shed. Laughter heard. Loud, angry screams ricocheted across the worn furniture. This room had certainly seen its fair share of bad.
But this was really bad.
Not quite 'someone-spilled-pie-all-over-the-Impala-and-Dean's-about-to-come-back-and-it's-not-even-good-pie-it's-the-apparently-crappy-kind-filled-with-whipped-cream-and-frothy-nothingness-which-is-an-insult-to-all-pie-or-so-Dean-claims' bad, but still pretty bad.
This was 'housing-a-demon-who-was-possibly-being-hunted-by-something-major-and-refusing-to-talk-about-it' bad.
He had contained Meg and was staring her down, but wasn't quite sure what to do with her. She still claimed to have some sort of important information, and by this point he wasn't sure if it was a bluff or not.
He didn't really want to try to force the information out of her. He was fairly convinced that it would take a long, long time to make her say anything she didn't want to say, and he was certain that no one would want to come in on such a strange, violent, and possibly perverse situation. He also couldn't just whisk the two of them over to wherever the Winchesters were, mostly because he didn't trust her anywhere near them for even the memory of a second.
And he didn't exactly want to just toss her out into the open, or leave her alone, where she could potentially kill them all or execute some brash, effective, and evil plan (if that wasn't what she was doing already).
It was better just to wait until the Winchesters and Bobby came home, and found that an angel and a demon had forced themselves into their home.
Castiel wasn't exactly the best at reading human customs and the like, but he had the suspicion that they wouldn't enjoy the surprise (but it would be better than appearing out of nowhere, or burning the remnants of Meg's being bit by bit as she screamed and laughed, so there they stayed).
Meg shifted from where she was lounging on the floor, a lazy, devilish little smile on her face.
"What's wrong, Feathers?" she drawled. "Worried about what the kids are going to say when they find out that Mommy and Daddy skipped out on the fun to be alone?"
Cas looked at her, then stared out the window.
He really didn't like this and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to interact with her when he wasn't aggressively threatening or protecting her. He didn't want to have to listen and interpret Meg's chatter and fail miserably, and he just really wanted Bobby and Dean and Sam to come back to fill the air and take care of what needed to be taken care of.
Meg gave a chuckle that made him very uncomfortable, and he silently begged them to come home a little bit faster.
"You are adorable when you're worried," she teased.
"I would not have to be if you would simply tell me what you know," he said, keeping his back to her for another moment before facing her.
Meg shifted and crossed her legs, leaning back on her elbows. Her skin appeared paler than it had an hour ago, her cheeks drawn and glazed with sweat, as if she were ill. Cas observed her curiously but opted not to comment – it did not matter to him if she were sick. What mattered was the supposed helpful information she was being infuriatingly coy and stubborn about sharing.
"Are they in danger?" he asked.
"Aren't they always?" Meg replied sweetly.
"Why did you come to me in the garden?"
Meg raised her eyebrow and stared Cas down seductively. "Oh, watch your choice of words, sugar, or you're going to get me all hot and bothered."
Castiel struggled to rein in his frustration. This was getting him absolutely nowhere. He weighed his options: take his chances with leaving her alone briefly to go find the boys himself and bring them back here, or take her with him them to go find the boys. Neither option was ideal, but if the Winchesters were truly in trouble, and Meg honestly did have information essential to or about them and whatever situation they were currently in, well…
A phone began to ring in the kitchen. Castiel cast a wary look at Meg, who raised her eyebrow at him.
"You gonna get that?"
The angel decided it would be safe to leave for just a moment and went to retrieve the phone. He found half a dozen phones mounted to the wall in the kitchen, however, each with a different label affixed to them: FBI, Police, Health Department…
"Uh…" Castiel's hand hovered over the phones, back and forth as one of them rang.
He picked one at random – labelled C.D.C. – but there was nothing on the other end except a dial tone. He tried the one called Fed. Marshal, and the one that read CIA, and then the ringing stopped. Cas scowled at the line-up of phones and then returned to the area where Meg was being held.
"Wrong number?" she said mockingly (and there was that I-know-something-you-don't-know smile again that he liked so much).
The front door opened, and a moment later Bobby appeared in the living room doorway. He was carrying a paper bag with a red and yellow logo in one hand, and a cardboard soda cup in the other. He froze in surprise at the sight that greeted him.
"What the hell?"
Casper, Wyoming
Sam set his phone down with a sigh. "No answer at Bobby's. He must be out."
"Good, 'cause we don't need him." Dean got to his feet. "Look, all the victims died in their houses, alone, right?"
"Yeah…" Sam agreed warily, concerned he knew exactly where his brother was going with this.
"So we figure out the connection, who's next, and go squat at their house 'till the beastie shows up, and then I gank it – whatever it is."
"Dean," Sam rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"What? I can take it, no matter what it is. Hell, I hope it is a witch after all, so I can completely clock the bitch." Dean held up his fist and then waggled his fingers.
"That's not the problem."
"Come on, Sammy, I have super powers! I'm not going to just sit here and do nothing with them!" Dean started towards the door. "I can think of a thousand things to do with these hands and researching is not one of them."
"Will you just wait until we know what's going on?" Sam yelled.
Dean yanked open the motel room door – or rather, as he had been doing with doors all day, unintentionally tore off the handle and took the door out of its frame. He swore loudly and realized there was a very tall man standing on the other side of the threshold. He had smooth, bronze-toned skin, and his hand was raised as if he'd been about to knock.
Dean stared at the man for a second. "Hey… aren't you the guy from the pizza place last night?"
The man with dark hair and gold eyes smiled, and it was the type of creepy, unnerving smile that sent chills of dread rocketing down Dean's spine.
"Man does not truly know strength," said the tall man, his voice soft and smooth. "Man is, and has always been, weak."
Without warning, the man brought his hands to Dean's chest and gave him a mighty shove. Dean careened backwards, completely off his feet, and crashed into the far wall on the opposite side of the room. Sam dove for his weapons, snatching up holy water, salt, and anything he could grab to throw at the man now advancing casually into their motel room. They had no idea what they were dealing with, so Sam was ready to try everything right now.
"Use your powers on him!" Sam hollered at his brother, who lurched to his feet unsteadily. The salt and holy water had zero effect – in fact, the man didn't even take note of Sam tossing the substances at him.
Though sunlight was streaming in the window by the table, there was a loud boom of thunder overhead. Dean charged at the man, but then the floor rumbled and shifted and pitched beneath his feet, and he pin-wheeled his arms and tumbled headlong into the table. The light fixtures flashed brighter than they should have been capable of shining, then exploded, raining glass down around the room.
The tall man's fingers were spread apart and he raised his hands to shoulder level, almost as if surrendering, and the thunder crashing somewhere outside got louder. Sam struggled to his knees and aimed his gun at the man, pulling the trigger several times as fast he could. Some of the bullets blew past the man and peppered the motel wall; the others hit their target but he was as unaffected by them as he was by the undulating floor. In fact the man looked no more bothered than if he'd been bitten by a mosquito.
He turned chilly gold eyes on Sam. "Really, insect, wait your turn."
Sam gulped.
Dean was on his feet again, fighting the rolling ground. He roared and made to charge the tall man again. This time he got close, but the man lashed out as fast as lightning, his fist cracking Dean in the face. The blond fell to his knees blinking the stars and blood from his eyes.
"Punch him, Dean! Use your super strength!"
"I'm trying! I think I've lost my mojo, Sammy!"
The tall man lifted Dean by the throat. Like the hunter and his run-in with the convenience store crook, it was as though Dean weighed nothing to the man holding him.
Sam scrabbled for his machete. Dean gasped for breath, fingers scratching uselessly at the tall man's iron-strong grip. The man brought his free hand towards Dean's chest, long golden claws extending from the tips of his fingers.
Sam clambered to his feet, using the wall for support. The man pressed the claws to Dean's chest and slowly dragged them down. The blond let out a strangled cry, his face purpling from lack of air. Sam raised his blade –
Castiel appeared and grasped Sam's arm. The tall man whirled. Dean kicked out, taking advantage of the man's second of distraction, and the man lost his grip on his plaything. Cas and Sam were gone in the blink of an eye, but Cas was back in the next second to clutch Dean's arm next.
"You!" The bronze-skinned man was furious. "Don't you d– "
A/n: Thanks for reading, stay tuned for part 3. ;) (And yes, this one part ends like that.)