On good days, Dean would see Lisa everywhere. She was there in every dark haired woman he saw, she was there every time the wind caressed his skin as tenderly as a lover's touch.
On not so good days, Sam was there too.
Dean could close his eyes and see Sam inside the panic room. But instead of remembering his brother in the throes of demon-blood addiction, Dean would picture his brother, helplessly trapped on that tiny cot, with a thin, wiry, old man, hovering over him.
Sometimes, the old man looked like Death; sometimes he was Dean himself.
After meeting Jacob and knowing of his plans for Ben, Dean saw shadows everywhere. Lurking, waiting to catch him unaware.
Twice more he saw the black car that had nearly run him over twice more; the roar of its engine sounded like a lion, waiting to pounce on top of Dean the minute he let his guard down.
Not many people could say that they went to sleep a six foot four Caucasian guy and woke up a four feet nine Asian woman.
For some reason, the sight of the tiny feet upon which he stood, freaked Sam a lot more than the fact that he no longer had a dick. Inside his head, Sam was picturing himself walking on the flimsiest of stilts, like an artist at the circus, and falling miserably to the ground as soon as he tried to stand.
None of that happened. But only when Sam looked into the mirror and saw hi- her reflection did his brain shift from 'big guy' to 'petite woman'.
It was worse than his 'experience' with Gary. Apart from the absence of confusion of not knowing what was going on, at least with the teen Sam had some things in common. Few, but they were at least anatomically present.
Now, all that Sam could see in the mirror was a completely alien landscape for him. And god, Dean could never, ever find out about this, because crap, if he ever did, there'd be no end to the jokes at Sam's expense.
Thinking of his missing brother sobered Sam faster than a bucket of ice.
Setting aside his freak out, Sam quickly got dressed (silently apologizing to the rightful owner of the body for the violation of her privacy) and went out. Bobby was already waiting for him by the curb, sitting patiently in his truck.
"Looking good, pretty lady," Bobby teased as soon as Sam opened the car door.
"God!" Sam moaned, nearly jumping at the too high-pitched sound that came out of his mouth. He resisted the urge to cover his mouth, looking around, half expecting people passing by in the street to be staring at him. Ignoring Bobby's chuckle, he leaned down and glared at him. "You're worse than Dean."
"Get in and stop whining," Bobby said, starting the car. "It was your idea in the first place."
Sam did as he was told and sagged into the seat, quickly reversing the action when he realized that he couldn't see the road in that position. "She okay?"
Bobby nodded. "Back in the motel room, sleeping like a baby inside your gigantor bones," the other man confirmed. "Gave her –you, I mean- enough sedative for at least six hours. Should give us time for you to give that house a good look-see, make the switch back and leave her back in her car. If all goes well, she'll just think that she fell asleep on the drive home yesterday."
Sam nodded. At least that poor woman wouldn't have to wake up and find herself in a strange body and be frightened to death; she'd probably end up in therapy for the rest of her life. Or have herself committed. Neither was a particularly comforting thought.
A long, silky tendril of hair chose that moment to drift in front of Sam's face and he batted at it with a growl of annoyance. It wasn't the first time that had happened and it wouldn't be the last and it was starting to get on his nerves. First order of business if he wanted to save Dean was to find a damn elastic band to get that hair under control. Sam could hear his brother laughing inside his head and he couldn't help but chuckle at the irony too. Sam Winchester... complaining about too long hair.
"You sure you're up to do this?" Bobby asked for the eleventh time.
Sam gave him no answer. It wasn't like they had a whole lot of options at this point.
Dean had learned to pick his favorite places according to number of ramps and open spaces they had. He hated the video store because the space between movie shelves was too narrow for him to navigate with his wheelchair and he always had to twist around sideways to read the titles on the plastic covers; he loved the bakery at the end of the street because they had a nice, gently angled ramp that didn't strain his arms when he went there to buy bread and those lemon cakes that Ben loved. And the chocolate pie they made... lord, ramp or no ramp, Dean would still go there.
The park two streets down from where they lived was another of Dean's favorites. The walking paths were mostly flat, with no jogging track anywhere in the vicinity. Dean had hated running just for the sake of running, not when his job required him to run after or from things that ran a hell of lot faster than he ever could. But that was before. Now he just hated seeing people run.
The trees were tall, old and sturdy and home to more squirrels than Dean dared to guess. The grass was green almost all year long, like some kind of magic spell had been placed on the grounds and the lake, that took most of the left side of the park, wasn't deep enough to have any decent fish in it, but the wild ducks liked it enough to use it has kindergarten.
Whenever Dean's classes ended early in the afternoon and he had no other commitment to attend to, he would grab a bag of peanuts for the squirrels and head for the park.
That day, however, Dean had another reason for visiting.
Maybe it was intuition, maybe it was plain obsession, maybe it was just him losing his mind. But Dean could swear that, the minute he had left the school grounds, that black car from before was following him.
Wheelchair parked at the edge of the lake, he wore his shades even though there were heavy clouds in the sky that hid the sun from sight. From there, Dean had a good view of the whole park, including the two entries and the road that circled the park.
Ten minutes in, Dean was ready to laugh at his apparent neuroses. In a rare bout of self-consciousness, he wondered what Lisa would say if she saw him like that, chasing imaginary ghosts; what Sam would say, knowing that once upon a time, they had chased real ghosts.
Twenty minutes in, Dean was beginning to feel stupid, like the kid who decides to face the school's bully but waits for him at the wrong school exit and completely misses his opportunity. The light rain that had started to fall, chasing everyone else from their walks in the park only made Dean feel more stupid when he remained behind.
And then Dean saw it. The black car of before. The one whose license place read like Dean's tombstone.
Engine rumbling, shaking the ground, it drove by, slowly. Then slower. Until it stopped.
Barely breathing, Dean watched as the driver side door opened and someone got out.
There was nothing specific about the driver, other than being a very tall man. He was dressed all in black, almost disappearing from view when he passed in front of his equally dark car.
The man stopped on the limit of the grass carpet that surrounded the lake, like it was a salt line meant to deter evil things instead of plants, and looked across.
Caught in the open, it wasn't even trying to hide anymore. He was staring straight at Dean.
Sweat rolled down Dean's back. Or maybe it was rain. Dean didn't care which. Stuck in this macabre Mexican standoff, Dean knew that while the distance between them was too great to allow clear visual of the other man's face, they were close enough that if he ever wanted to confront his stalker, now was the time.
The stranger didn't give Dean much time to wonder. He reached inside his bulky jacket and pulled something long, thin and made of a material that ate light as soon as it dared to touch it. It took Dean a couple of seconds to realize that he was staring down at the end barrel of a sniper riffle.
At that distance, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Dean swallowed, rooted to the spot, wishing for the first time in the past few years that he was carrying a gun. There was no point in running away, rolling around aimlessly like a headless chicken. His chair would never outrun a bullet.
The overcast sky cleared for an instant and sunlight came bursting forth in well defined rays through the clouds. As one touched the menacing figure, ready to fire its weapon, the man vanished, like he had never been there.
He looked around. There was no one in the vicinity, no one to panic at a crazy gunman, no one to point fingers at the obvious threat. No one to tell Dean if he had imagined it all or if it'd been real.
Marcus opened the door to the room situated on the top floor of the western tower of his mansion in Pennsylvania. It was late at night and other than himself, only the doctor and nurse on call were still awake. The medical staff under his pay roll held a constant vigil, keeping a close eye on the readings of the several monitors surrounding Dean and over the man himself.
Not long after they'd captured and subdued the hunter, Marcus had taken to visiting the holding area where Dean was kept, even when there was no session scheduled. He would get ready to go to bed, rest his head over his goose-feathers pillow, close his eyes and know that he would not be able to sleep until he had made his nightly visit.
The room was too hot, Marcus realized as soon as he entered, the medical personal probably taking into account the state of undress of the man on the table rather than the rest of them.
Marcus neared the air conditioner control and made some adjustments. In a matter of minutes, the units kicked on, plunging the room into a more pleasant temperature.
"Anything we can do for you, sir?" the doctor, Rudolph, asked, just as he always did. "Do you wish to connect again?"
Marcus considered the offer for a couple of seconds. There was no sane reason to want to be inside Dean's head, to visit his thoughts and emotions, to manipulate his feelings, but still Marcus always found himself unable to sleep just thinking about it.
If he were to be completely honest with himself, he would say yes. He didn't know what it was about this man's experiences, his life, but Marcus wanted to delve into those feelings again, to push and probe and illicit new responses, even knowing that the one crucial piece of information he needed from Dean could not be obtain in a rush and careless way. Certainly not like this, on a whim, in the middle of the night.
They had already gathered all the intel that they needed on angels, and now that Marcus' team had begun the search for a way to harness the power of an angel, Dean's knowledge and usefulness had almost run its course.
There was still the small matter of DNA compatibility between vessel and angel, but that was something that Marcus was sure that his genetics' team would find a solution for... or they would find themselves replaced by someone who could.
No, in all honesty there was only one more thing of relevance that Marcus needed from Dean, a final piece in his plan. And yet...
"No, Dr. Rudolph," Marcus answered the physician. "Let him rest for now. We'll proceed with tomorrow's session, as scheduled."
And yet, the still form that lay in that bed, fed by tubes and devoid of all life except for the rise and fall of his chest, held no resemblance to the man that Marcus interacted with in dreamland. It looked like a bad replica, a rubber life-sized doll of the real thing.
It was hard to look at that unconscious Dean and see him as a real person.
What would the good doctor say of the addictive effects that dream-walking was having on Marcus? Was it something inherent to the herbs used in the tea, or a peculiar effect from walking this particular man's memories and dreams?
Perhaps it was simply the god-like feeling that Marcus got when he was hooked to the same machine as the legendary Dean Winchester and knowing he was in control of that man's life. Perhaps it was fate.
Like someone from Dean's real life walking in on the meeting that Marcus had put together to get his hands on one of the Holy Nails.
Always a curious of ancient history, Marcus had known about the lore surrounding the Holy Nails for quite sometime, even before his quest had begun. However, dismissing it as superstitious fantasies fueled by less educated minds, easily impressed by shiny things, Marcus had not paid the legends their proper relevance. That had all changed when he had found how many myths and legends were actually true.
If it had been just a matter of purchasing one, Marcus would have no problems. The right amount of money in the right pair of hands would get him the artifact in less than a day, no matter where in the world.
The problem was that no one knew where in the world to find them. As far as anyone could tell, other than the fakes put on display for tourists and the devout, the real thing no longer existed.
Marcus remembered Bobby from Dean's memories. There was no blood relation between the two of them, but there might as well have been; Winchester looked up to the older hunter, thought of him like a father. Regardless of all those sappy feelings that Marcus didn't give a crap about, Bobby and his incredible research skills could prove to be an invaluable resource.
If the artifact that Marcus needed to ensure the success of his plan existed and could be found, Bobby would be the one to do it. Like Dean, the old hunter had become an integral part of Marcus plan, only in quite a different way. Fate had brought that man to the steps of his house.
Sam's presence so nearby, however, concerned Marcus a little bit more. He knew too little about Dean's younger brother and the rumors spread about him were even wilder than the ones he'd heard about Dean.
The gentle giant who had been riven from the prospect of a successful life as a lawyer by the murder of his girlfriend. The vessel of the devil himself. The sensitive side of the Winchester duo. A cold and heartless hunter who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted, so much so that not even other hunters dared to cross him.
Information about Sam Winchester was like a fast and schizophrenic tennis match, ball jumping from one end of the court to the other at dizzying speed.
Not to mention the fact that, like his brother Dean, half the hunters Marcus had talked to swore that Sam was dead.
However, even if at the time Marcus had known that Sam was in fact alive, he was certain that he would have still picked Dean as his mean's to an end. Opportunity, after all, had played its part as well.
And now that he had Dean in his hands, Marcus knew he had made the right choice, that he had picked the right brother.
Dean's heart had been the key to his most hidden memories. How would Marcus have been able to manipulate a hunter without heart?
Dean dreamt of being awake. It was the most unsettling of feelings, opening his eyes and finding himself not in the bedroom that he used to share with Lisa, but rather in a room painted white with bright lights that made the whole ceiling disappear in a sea of luminosity.
It made Dean feel like he was floating on the surface of the sun. Except that, instead of burning, he felt nothing but cold. He was always cold.
There were shadows inside the light.
For some reason that escaped understanding, Dean always pictured them as demons. Demons in Hell liked to hide in the light as well.
Or maybe they were fairies. He had no idea why, but Dean was sure that fairies were just as evil and bloodthirsty as demons and that both wanted a piece of who he was. Both wanted to change him into something else
"No, Dr. Rudolph," the disembodied voice of one of the demons said. "Let him rest for now. We'll proceed wi..."
After that, the bright light was engulfed by darkness. But the cold remained.
"You dosed off," Ben's voice called Dean back to awareness.
Dean shivered and looked around, confused for a moment to find himself surrounded by old books that were piled everywhere, covering each surface like a heavy coat. Bobby's place.
Well, it was Dean's place now, but in his mind, it would always be Bobby's place. Dean hadn't bothered to change a thing. Even the dust layers were still the same. If he closed his eyes, Dean could still see Sam sitting on the old couch and Bobby sitting at his desk, pouring over old texts in obscure languages that no one spoke these days.
He and Ben had spent the day painting sigils all over the house. Enochian sigils, for the most part. Ben seemed fascinated by what they were for and what they could do, soaking up every brush stroke by Dean's hand, every spoken word from his lips. Somehow, he didn't seem to care that the reason why Dean was angel-proofing the house and grounds was because there was an angel after Ben.
"We could clear the shack," Ben went on, probably in the same line of thought that Dean had fallen asleep to. "Use it as a class room."
Dean's brow creased.
"It's falling apart," he countered. There was no point in trying to weasel out of the school thing anymore. Ben was like a bloodhound in his pursuit, more now than before. With the angels breathing down their necks and the threat of Heaven's war being fought on the streets of Earth, Dean couldn't really blame the kid.
Kid.
Young man, Dean corrected himself quietly. He really needed to start seeing Ben as a young adult rather than a kid; it had taken far too long for Dean to recognize that in Sam and he wouldn't make the same mistake with Ben. So Dean vowed silently to change that, preferably in time to get used to the idea, at least by the time Ben turned eighteen, which was just a couple of months away.
"They're arriving in a couple of hours," Ben said. "No one really cares how the place looks, just about what they'll learn."
There it was again, that glint in Ben's eyes that scared the crap out of Dean. Was this how he had looked at his father when John had started teaching him about hunting? Had he been this gung-ho to risk his own life?
The matter of Jacob's proposal had been dropped after they had settled in Bobby's place and plans for the hunters' school had begun. Dean was just happy for the distraction, feeble as it was.
The days they had spent waiting for Ben's classes to end and for Dean's commitments to be done with had been tense, to say the least. Dean had tried his best to lead life as usual. As usual as things ever got for him.
But nothing was the same.
If life before had been a struggle, what with raising a kid on his own and dealing with his disability, now, knowing that there was an angel chasing Ben and that there was nothing that Dean could do to protect his son, his definition of 'struggle' had suffered some major remodeling. Knowledge of the sword dangling over them both was eating away at him, stealing Dean' sleep every night.
For his part, Ben had solemnly directed his efforts to keeping in touch with the three hunters that would be joining them and organizing things with the students that would make up for their first class. There were twenty already, that Dean knew of.
With the increase in the number of reports of strange happenings around the world; bright lights at night that left entire fields devastated without signs of any outside influence. Entire buildings evaporated from when they stood, with no trace of their destruction. Lightning storms that hit particular places with such an intensity and precision that they seemed to be anything but random. People disappearing every day, leaving everything behind, never to be seen again... it was no wonder that everyone wanted to know how to protect themselves and their loved ones.
It seemed only reasonable that anyone not in denial about the coming battle would want to do something; it seemed a far better option than just standing by and waiting for what came next.
Twenty, as it was, was a small enough number. Mainly because information about the whole project had been kept almost secretively, passed around from mouth to mouth only to trusted ears.
What came next, however, scared Dean more than the building up of reports of angel skirmishes and fights.
Jacob's silence and Ben's non-pursuit of the matter left Dean uneasy. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And drop it did, two days after the first hunting class was taught.
'His' name was Brenda Wong, Sam found out from the driver's license in her purse.
Sam nodded to the guard at the gate, hoping that he and Brenda weren't best buddies or had some close relationship that would make his casual greeting look odd and raise any alarms. The man nodded back and Sam sighed in relief.
"Hey, Brenda?" the guard called back before Sam could take more than two steps.
Sam stopped, planting a laid-back look on his face. He couldn't be discovered this soon, even before setting foot inside the house. The door was just right there, all he had to do was reach out and touch...
"Thought it was your day off?" the guard went on, his steps coming closer to Sam.
Sam tensed, wondering if the man suspected anything even though he knew that it was virtually impossible for him, or anyone else, for that matter, to even fathom the possibility that the person in front of him was anyone but Brenda.
"Forgot my wallet last night," Sam let out with a practiced eye-roll, tilting his head in what he hoped was a female enough position. Playing the right amount of coy was tougher than walking in high heels, Sam would suppose (something he hadn't, fortunately, been forced to put to a test as he'd searched Brenda's closet for some no-nonsense tennis shoes to wear and been quite successful at his quest).
The guard chuckled, just like Sam had hoped he would.
"Yeah, I guess these days you can't wait to get out of the house right?" he said with a knowing wink.
Sam had no idea what he was talking about, but he figured Brenda would've. He chuckled back and lowered his gaze, pretending to be embarrassed at being caught. "I really wasin a hurry."
"Well, I gotta get back to my post," the guard said. "Give Sue a kiss from me, will ya?"
Sam nodded, despite not having heard a word the man had said, and made a hasty retreat towards the house.
From the house schematics that he'd snatched from the City Hall online files, Sam knew that there was a service entrance in the back with direct access to all floors.
Sam's aim was to search first this house and, if he failed to find Dean there, he would try to sneak inside Marcus' office and see if he could get more information.
Calling it a big house was a bit of an understatement. There was an east wing and a west wing, the latter having a turret, a tower-like structure that dated, or at least denoting the architectural influences that had gone into designing the massive residence. All in all, with its many old English period exterior accents, complete with a circular, gray roof, the estate looked more like a castle and less like a home. The kind of place one bought as a status symbol rather than a place to live comfortably.
Three stories high with one attic tall enough to house another floor, each floor ran the length of two football fields. And that was not taking into account the stables, which had been converted into a garage that could house up to twenty cars; the gardening shed, which was big enough to house a family of five; the inside pool; the outside pool house and the guards' quarters.
Sam took a deep breath, thinking about the likelihood of Dean being anywhere as exposed as a pool house or a garage and thanked the powers-that-be for small favors, as it was. There was no basement.
If Sam had to search for his brother through another series of damp, dark and rotten underground rooms, he was going to punch Fate in the nose.
Even so, it would be a daunting task.
There was a back door, of sorts, and Sam pushed it open cautiously. It led to more doors; the one to the right would take him to the kitchen, if the smell of freshly baked bread was anything to go by; the one on the left to the stairs. Turning to take the door on the left, Sam paused when he saw the lockers in one corner, behind some boxes of canned food. There was one with Brenda's name on it.
Opening it, Sam found two other complete uniforms, similar to the one she had worn home the previous night.
Thinking that his presence would be a lot less conspicuous if Brenda was wearing her working clothes, Sam quickly slipped into one of the yellow uniforms.
"What are you doing here?" a woman's voice caught Sam by surprise just as he was struggling with the skirt's zipper.
Looking up, he saw a short, round woman, probably old enough to be his mother. The nametag on the plaque on her chest read 'Megan'.
"I..." Sam stuttered, thinking about a believable reason to be there on what was, apparently, Brenda's day off. Remembering the guard's words, Sam quickly put a bored expression on his face. "Sue called... she needed to do some stuff this morning and asked if I could cover for her."
Megan rose on fine plucked eyebrow, staring at 'Brenda' from top to bottom. "Turn around," she ordered in a voice that allowed for no argument.
Not really sure what to do, Sam did as he was told, his hands awkwardly grasping the edges of the skirt so it wouldn't fall off. Tensing when he sensed Megan drawing closer to his back, Sam relaxed when he heard a zipper running.
"These young girls today," the woman went on. "Can't even zip a damn skirt. And don't you think that Sue ain't gonna get a earful either, thinking that she can sneak out of work without anyone noticing..." she went on. "And as for you, you can get going on the window washing. That was Sue's work for today, so you might as well start it."
Sam didn't even dare opening his mouth until the matron lady went away, still mumbling about the lack of commitment of youth. He just grabbed a box with a bottle of window cleaner and a cloth and opened the door on the left. The stairs were the only way to go from there.
The first floor seemed to be mostly sleeping quarters. Room after room after room, until Sam felt like he was trapped inside some loop or a frigging furniture store. He and Dean had stayed in motels with less rooms that this frigging house.
By the end of the corridor, on the left, a set of double doors gave access to a lounge room whose walls were covered in books. Some of them looked genuinely old enough to grab Sam's attention on any other occasion. He barely gave them a glimpse before closing the doors again.
The last door on that floor was locked, which only piqued Sam's interest.
Heart pounding against his chest, wondering if Dean could be behind those doors, Sam pulled the pick from his pocket, gave one last look around to make sure he was alone and went to work on the lock. House locks, in general, were far from a challenge to break in. This one was no different.
Closing the door behind himself, Sam searched the wall for the light switch and flicked it on.
And gasped.
Dean wasn't there; it didn't look like he'd ever been there. The whole space, however, looked like John Winchester had camped inside for a year. If John Winchester had a fetish for angels.
In a matter of mere months, Marcus learned a lot about the myths and legends of the world. Few, however, seemed to fit the parameters that he'd set for his goal.
Vampires were an easy choice, one of the first to come up. The simplest of processes and one that made the most sense; all Marcus had to do was allow himself to be turned and he would be forever young, one of the children of the night. But he would also be dependent on others, hostage of a blood lust that according to what they had found, no vampire could control. Marcus had no desire to spend his eternity as an addict.
Philosopher stones and the fountain of youth had both been complete busts, childish bedtime stories that had amounted to nothing tangible.
Shapeshifters and skinwalkers seemed to be genetic conditions that would be hard to mimic and were put aside for the moment. Besides, the rough drawings and stories detailing the grotesque details of their physical mutations would not only mean Marcus had to set aside his personal vanity, but he'd have to live forever the life of a recluse. Simply put, a thing of that repugnance would create a public stir wherever it went and for Marcus, for all his wealth and bravado, knew that simply wouldn't do.
Ghouls, ghosts, wendigos, and all sort of deformed or not even truly living beings, for much of the same reason, were not even considered.
Marcus wanted to be more than human, but he wanted to live as himself, in control of his actions and fate.
Demons came into the conversation almost by accident. Making a crossroads' deal with one of them was hardly productive, not when the price would be paid in a ten years time unless Marcus found someone to pay the price for him. But even so, there were no guarantees that either the demon or the sucker he found would keep their word.
Marcus had been the one to suggest demonic possession. It seemed like a good fit: a powerful being without any corporal form unless it took the body of a human, giving him superhuman strength, the power to read minds and move objects without touching them, amongst other things. It was too good to pass up and Marcus loved the idea, but only if he was the one in charge.
Despite being warned that it would be next to impossible to control a demon, let alone trust one, Marcus decided to go forward the idea.
They summoned one.
Marcus' team was sure that they had found a way to trap the demon inside a protective circle, and that, once trapped, they could reason with it and present their deal.
The young man in coveralls that showed up when they finished the summoning ritual looked nothing like a demon.
Until they looked into his eyes and saw his black-as-night true nature.
Cautious of what he was doing, Marcus had sent one of his security guards to be possessed while and he watched a video feed, from a safe distance. If this demon could keep his word, Marcus would then make the switch and finally live forever.
It was a disaster. The first thing that the possessed man did once he was free from the trapping circle was to kill everyone in that room. And when there was no one else to kill, it had simply vanished in to thin air, never to be seen again.
They tried it two more times after that, the next time with a couple of homeless people that Marcus' guards had grabbed from the streets. The same thing happened every time. It was clear that demons could neither be tamed nor trusted.
When all reasonable avenues inside the unreasonable world of the supernatural had been pursued and spent, Marcus was once again the one who came up with a final suggestion, the one creature that they hadn't tried yet because none of the hunters believed it to be real.
Angels.
Covering two of the walls were newspaper prints, photos, maps with red X marks, handwritten papers... all the pieces and bits of a thorough research. The third wall was filled with more books, looking older and more fragile than the ones kept in the library; one of the selves was filled with scrolls and Sam could only imagine how many rare tomes were concealed in that secret room.
The angels were... everywhere.
There were several statues depicting every angelic known form, from cherubs to fighting angels; a large painting on the wall showed Michael, piercing the side of a dragon. The books on the shelves were about the same subject, going from historical, to religious to the fringier personal tales of angel encounters.
At first look, it seemed that any and everything pertaining to angels and their actions and contacts with humans throughout time had been collected and put on display in that room in one form or another.
One photo in particular, pinned next to the U.S. map on the wall, caught Sam's attention. He walked steadily across the room, closer with every step, and with every step feeling his dread mount. It was a grainy black and white shot of two men, walking side by side on some street that Sam couldn't place.
The men, however, were easy enough to identify. Sam would recognize his own brother anywhere and under any circumstances; and the trench coat that the other man was wearing made his identification just as simple. Dean and Castiel.
There were more pictures of Dean surrounding that one, some linked to X's on the map, and some linked to newspaper clippings. A vengeful spirit that they had put to rest two states over six weeks before; the dragons' attacks on virgins that he had Dean had tried to stop less than a month ago. They were all there, a factual and detailed trail of their moves across the country.
The last one clipping, Sam recognized immediately. He ripped it off the wall and stared at it, fingers shaking with a mixture of outrage and sadness.
It had been taken from too far a distance to give much detail to the look of utter devastation that Dean's face had been showing at that time, but Sam didn't need to see it, he'd lived it. The setting, the location and the timing, however... Sam knew too well when this had been taken.
In the photo, Dean was coming down the front steps of the hospital, the same hospital where he'd left behind what had probably been his last chance at normal, his shot at being happy and having a family of his own. The same hospital where he'd left Lisa and Ben behind and disappeared from their lives like one of the ghosts they hunted. Sam remembered all too well the unshed tears in his brother's eyes and the sheer despair in which he had demanded that Sam never mention Lisa and Ben ever again.
Sam resisted the urge to tear that room apart. This guy had been following Dean for some time it seemed, just waiting for the right opportunity to grab him. And the chance had presented itself when Dean's heart had been broken.
Taking a deep breath, Sam looked at the printed papers instead, looking for some logic in these people's actions.
He knew from what Bobby had told him that Marcus was trying to get his hands on a Holy Nail. But to what purpose? And how did that connect with angels?
Then it struck Sam, like a bolt of lightning. The lore surrounding the Holy Nails spoke not only about the power of winning wars and controlling armies; it spoke of controlling Heaven's armies, Heavenly creatures. "Shit…" Sam murmured as the full ramifications sunk in.
This guy was trying to harness an angel!
Sam shook his head. Even with the authentic Nails, even if the lore about them was accurate, it would still be like trying to put a leash on a hurricane. Why would anyone want to do that?
What did this guy want with an angel? Have it as a personal pet?
Marcus obviously had a serious hard-on for angels, that much Sam could easily see from all the stuff gathered in that room. But to what end? And where did Dean fit into all of that?
Frustrated that he wouldn't find Dean's whereabouts in that room, which was honestly giving him the creeps, Sam flicked the lights off and opened the door. Making sure that the corridor was still empty, he left, closing the door behind him.
He had one floor left to search. The access to it, though, was guarded.
"You can't come in here, little miss," the tall guard standing at the top of the stairs said. He looked down at Sam with a condescending smile and Sam was finding it increasingly hard to tolerate the way these Neanderthals stared down at hi—her. Without realizing it, he felt his hands curl into fists before he was able to reel in his anger and take a breath.
Craning his neck to have a look at the towering man (who, to Sam's frustration was shorter than Dean), Sam vowed never to make fun of short people ever again in his life. It was damn uncomfortable.
"But I was told to clean all the windows," Sam tried, blinking Brenda's eyelashes for good measure. God, he hated using the poor woman like that.
The guard gave him a sleazy smile, leaning closer, taking the invitation that Sam wasn't even aware he was making. "All windows but these ones, you know that, sweet heart."
"Why not?" Sam pushed on, hoping that the question would come off more as flirting rather than as pressing for information. "You boys have some sort of a secret club up there?"
The guard chuckled. "Secret freak show, more like it," he whispered.
"Fred! Quit fucking around and come help us here!" someone yelled, snapping 'Fred' back to attention.
"Go back downstairs," Fred ordered before turning his back and racing back to the other guard who was waiting for him outside one of the rooms at the far end of the corridor. "Now!"
Sam pretended to turn around and head back. As soon as Fred was out of sight, however, he ran up the final steps and darted behind a large vase that decorated the second floor's hall. For the first time, Sam found himself grateful for Brenda's smaller body.
Some sort of alarm went off and for a fragment of a second, Sam thought that he had been discovered. Dozens of feet were racing up the stairs and Sam's tiny fists curled once more, nails biting into his palms, ready to fight his way into that room if need be. The guards rushing up from the first floor didn't even look his way.
Whatever was happening in that room, it was getting out of control and that was where they all headed.
Sam could hear crashing metal and loud cursing. One scream in particular made Sam's blood freeze in his veins.
Sam knew that scream. He'd heard it before.
Despite his best efforts to hide the effects that Hell's memories had over him, there were nights when Dean was helpless against the nightmares that haunted his sleep. When the alcohol wasn't enough to mask the fear, when sleep could no longer be denied, Dean would often wake up screaming.
Blood chilling sounds just like the one Sam heard coming from that room.
One man wearing a white lab coat came rushing out the closed door, not stopping until he was at the end of the hall. And for one, wild reckless moment, or a second, Sam entertained the idea of rushing into that room and letting his eyes confirm what his ears were telling him.
Dean was there.
Most of the cars that Bobby had collect through his years as a salvage yard owner, were still there. Columns of rust and leaky tubes that extended as far as the eye could see.
The yard looked bigger from his wheelchair. More intimidating, like he could lose himself in that labyrinth of metal and never be found again.
It was the first time Dean had looked around the place since Bobby's death, the first time he had done it after losing the use of his legs. The piled cars seemed to stretch all the way to the sky from that point of view.
Dean caught some movement at the corner of his eye and whirled his chair around. It was just him and Ben there, for now. Everyone else was scheduled to start arriving soon.
The shadows cast by the rusty cars shifted slightly and Dean moved forward. "Who's there?" he called out. "Ben, is that you?"
The lack of answer was enough to get Dean's heart beating wildly. He was unarmed, alone in the salvage yard. And what was worse, Ben was alone at the house.
Dean remembered the shadowy figure at the park, how it had pulled a gun on him. Looking around, Dean spotted an iron pipe, part of some car's exhaust system, wedged underneath a broken front shield.
Keeping one eye on the moving shadow, Dean made his way to the only weapon that he had at reach. He bent down, sideways, fingers reaching for the dirt floor.
The shadow took form in front of him, too close for comfort, too near to give Dean much time to defend himself.
With a curse, Dean stretched harder, fingers brushing the edge of the pipe.
The thing advanced towards him, slowly, like it had all the time in the world to kill him. With each step it took, its form changed ever so slightly. The image warped and altered like a TV linked to an old antenna, tuning a difficult channel.
When his fingers finally curled around the pipe and he looked up, Dean almost lost the grip on his weapon all over again.
There, in the sunlit yard, framed by a canyon of deformed cars, was his brother, Sam.
"Sam?" Dean found himself whispering, knowing that it was impossible what his eyes were showing him, knowing that it was a trick, that he should be lunging at the thing wearing his brother's face instead of staring. But staring was all that Dean could do.
And then the thing wearing Sam's face smiled, a smirk that Dean had only seen on his brother's lips when Lucifer was inside him.
When Dean raised his weapon to attack, it was too late. The thing that looked like Sam had charged forward and punched him with such strength that Dean felt himself flying from his wheelchair. He didn't even remember landing.
"Who is responsible for this?" Marcus shouted above the noisy alarm. He stood in the center of the room, staring at the wreckage of equipment and cables.
Dean was once again settled on the bed and around him, doctors and nurses who'd been scrambling to clean up the mess their patient had made of the room, froze. No one spoke. The guards who'd suffered the brunt of Dean's confused, violent outbreak, some dabbing at bloodied lips and noses, others quietly attempted to tuck in their shirts, stopped as well.
"And someone stop that goddamn infernal alarm!" Marcus added again when no one spoke up.
One of the straps holding Dean's arms to the bed was broken, snapped right in the middle. The machines surrounding the bed were beeping wildly, alerting everyone to the obvious fact that something was amiss.
Marcus had arrived to chaos. One of the doctors was flat against the wall, knocked unconscious; two of the computers were knocked sideways, letting out annoying screeches of error message and one of the bags of fluids that had been hanging near Dean's body was forgotten on the floor, quietly leaking its contents into the carpet. All of that caused, it seemed, by a man who, by all rights, shouldn't even be awake, much less moving
And yet...
Dean had managed to break free of his restraints and destroy half the room. It had taken three guards to get him back on the bed.
"Was he conscious? Was he aware of where he was?" Marcus questioned the trembling man in a lab coat even as he got to unsteady feet.
"I—I don—" the man stuttered, righting his glasses on his nose. The frames were bent out of shape and rested crooked at the edge of his swallowing nose. "It was all so fas—"
"Quit stalling! Was he awake? Was he aware?"
The man backed away, spine straightening and looking at the angry man yelling at him. "Awake? Yes, without a doubt. Aware? Hardly possible with all the drugs in his system," he said quietly, swallowing his fear. "And you know what? I don't care how much power you have or how many ways you can end my career. I'm done!" he said, throwing ruined glasses on the floor. "Any further questions you have, you can either shove them up your ass or ask them to the poor bastard that replaces me, because I'm out of here! I'm tired of this Mengelian crap and I'm sick of your craziness!"
Marcus looked astounded as the doctor banged the door and left. People did not quit on him. They got fired or they got screwed but either way, it was Marcus decision, not his employees.
And that was one employee who had seen too much. Even with the non-disclosure contract that all of his workers were forced to sign before getting that first, fat paycheck, there was too much to lose if that man ever decided to grow a conscience and open his mouth.
Marcus followed him outside, watching as the doctor walked resolutely toward the stairs, muttering to himself. He couldn't afford to let him get out, not when they were so close to succeeding.
Looking around, Marcus grabbed the first thing he could; an iron sculpture of Rodin's Thinking Man that sat on top of a side table on the corridor. The small object d'art was far heavier than its appearance would suggest.
Dr. Rudolph's skull was no match for it when Marcus smashed the sculpture against his head. Bone caved in like ripe fruit and blood sprayed all over Marcus and the walls.
The doctor's body thumped to the floor, sound muffled by the expensive carpets. He died so fast that no even a moan managed to escape his lips.
Marcus dropped the statute, the head of the Thinking Man breaking on contact with the floor.
Two men with broken heads, Marcus thought, watching as Rudolph's blood spread across the floor. It was the first man that Marcus had ever killed with his own hands. He had expected to feel something, to taste some form of regret or fear. Instead, there was nothing, apart from a vague sense of nuisance over the prospect of having to replace that carpet.
Looking up, Marcus found himself staring at a woman of Asian origins, hidden behind the Ming vase in the small alcove by the window.
"What are you doing here?"