Chapter 4

Lying on his stomach, just below the top of the ridge, Sam looked down into the gaping pit below. The quarry hadn't been mined for some time, but the raw cuts in the hillside were still open, uncovered by vegetation, the striations of the bedrock clearly visible in the dawn light.

The binoculars were heavy, high magnification; and he moved them slowly around, looking for any signs of activity, anything that might indicate that the demons had been here, had brought Dean here. He was careful to keep the lenses downward, so that no reflection would betray his location. In the pack that lay beside him, he had everything he could think of that he might need.

Nothing moved in the wide bowl of rock and gravel and sand, not even the wind stirred the dusty-looking leaves of the trees that clung to the edges of the open area. There were distinct tyre tracks, pressed into the soft ground along one edge, from the dirt road that led in off the highway, but they were old, he thought, focussing the lenses on the set he could see. The edges had been blurred by the ground getting wet and drying again, by the passage of animals back and forth across them. He couldn't see any sign that anyone had been here in the last few days.

There was no warning, no sound or change. One moment he was alone, his attention fixed on the ground below. The next, he wasn't.

"Have you seen anything?"

His head snapped around at a voice no louder than a whisper of breeze, close by his ear.

"Not a demon," the woman said, lying next to him, her hand light over his arm, bright green eyes, flecked with gold, staring into his.

Her face was covered in streaks of olive, beige and umber; bright hair hidden beneath a knitted cap of beige, the desert fatigues she wore blending in with the muted colours around them.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, his voice a deep rumble, as quiet as he could make it and still be audible. His pulse was slowing and behind the camouflaging outfit, he realised he was probably looking at the hunter his brother had wanted to talk to.

Her gaze shifted to look down at the quarry. "Not the best place to have a discussion. They were around here a lot last week. Come on."

She moved backwards silently, supporting the length of her body on her hands and the toes of her boots, slithering with remarkable speed and silence from the ridge-line and down the broken slope behind them.

Sam slid slowly backwards until he was below the ridge, then rolled onto his side, replacing the glasses in the pack and dragging it after him as he wriggled further down the slope.

In the little copse of stunted trees ten yards below, she was waiting for him, sitting so still on the log that he had trouble picking her out from the trees behind her. As he got closer, he realised that beneath the greasepaint and fatigues, she looked young, younger than he'd thought.

"I'm guessing you're Sam Winchester?" she asked, tilting her head to meet his gaze as he sat down beside her.

He looked at her suspiciously. "What do you know about us?"

"Not a lot," she told him, unoffended by his tone. "I used to know someone who knew your father. And the demons have been talking about you, lately."

Sam frowned, the two comments warring for priority. "You talk to demons?"

"They talk," she corrected him. "When they're in a trap and about to be sent back to the pit."

"I think they've got my brother," he said, catching his lip between his teeth as fear flickered through him, hastily dampened. "He disappeared last night."

"They won't be here," she said, glancing back to the ridge line. "They haven't been here since I got here yesterday morning. You saw the ley lines and the epicentres?"

He nodded. "We thought it might be a gate."

"There probably is one here, but they can't open it without drawing a lot more attention to the place and I'm getting the feeling that it wasn't the gate that they were interested in."

Sam's eyes narrowed as he registered her implication. "It was a trap – for us?"

"I've been in and out of this town a couple of times over the last month, since the omens started to show." She looked at him curiously. "You didn't know that you're known to the demons?"

Sam shook his head, his mouth twisting slightly. "Not until … well, until it was too late."

"Why would they take your brother?" she asked. "The demons mostly talk about you, not him."

A shiver ran up his spine. "What're they saying?"

"That they need to find you," she told him. "For something that's coming. They talk about hunters, specifically hunters by the name of Winchester. They talk about a war, here."

"Yeah, we heard that too," Sam hesitated, wondering what he could tell her, what it was safe to tell her. The earlier comment snagged at his attention. "You've been hunting demons? Alone?"

"One hides a lot easier than two," she answered, her tone light.

"Yeah." Sam bit his lip. "You think Dean's being held as bait, don't you? For me?"

"Probably," she said carefully.

Sam caught the inflexion. "Do you know where they've taken him?"

"There's a building, in town, supposed to be empty but I've seen lights there. It's down by the industrial park."

"Show me," Sam said, his voice hardening.

She looked at him, seeing his pulse beating rapidly in the big artery in his neck. "You can't rush in there, Sam. I know you're afraid for him, but if it's a trap for you, you won't spring it by giving them what they want. You need to handle your emotions, keep them under your control."

He swallowed, looking away. "I know."

She got to her feet and Sam rose as well. The top of her head was a couple of inches below his shoulders and she tilted her head back, holding out her hand.

"Ellie Morgan."

He took the hand she offered, hiding his surprise at the wiry strength of her grip. "Why are you helping me?"

She looked at him, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly. "Wouldn't you do the same if our positions were reversed?"

He dropped his gaze, knowing that they would have. "Yeah, I guess."

"If we go to look at this place, it'll just be a recce," she warned him. "That alright with you?"

"Yeah," he said. It seemed to satisfy her, he thought, watching as she turned and started walking down the hillside, staying under the trees, the dappled light further breaking her outline, making her harder to see.

Sam followed her, walking where she walked, keeping within the treeline.

The building was definitely occupied, Sam thought as he stopped the Impala in the visitor's parking space of the town's second motel. He glanced through the window to see the headlights of her truck turn off and got out.

They'd spent two hours watching the vacant building from the other side of the railway line, well out of sight of anyone who might've been looking, and had seen two men, coming and going, but no one else. He'd followed the slight woman across the tracks and down through the warren of buildings surrounding it when both men had left.

Crossing the lot, Sam wondered what the hunter had in mind. She'd seemed pleased when they'd left, a low hum of energy radiating from her.

He stopped in the doorway of her room, staring around with a disconcerting sense of déjà vu at the piles of books, notes, files stacked on the tables and the clippings, photographs and lines of string that covered one wall. It looked like any one of the rooms his father had been in for awhile, he thought, looking around.

"The building next door will give us the best view of the western side," Ellie said, glancing at him as he closed the door behind him. "If we go in tonight, we make sure there's only the two of them, and figure the best way to get in and out."

He nodded distractedly. "You think there's more?"

She paused in filling the coffee pot she held, heading ducking for a moment. "Yeah, I do. Not sure why, but I do."

Sam thought so as well. Two of them, even demons, would have had a hard time taking his brother without leaving something behind. But they had.

He walked to the wall of clippings, moving slowly along it as he studied the information pinned there. "Ellen tell you anything about us?" he asked, keeping his gaze on the news reports.

"No," Ellie said, carrying two cups of coffee to the table near the wall. "I asked Bobby Singer about you."

"You know Bobby?"

She nodded, gesturing to the opposite chair as she sat down. "A couple of years."

"What'd he tell you?" Sam sat in the chair and picked up the cup. It was black and strong, helping to keep his attention focussed.

"He told me you and your brother and your father were right in the middle of the war that the demons are talking about," she said bluntly, blowing over the surface of her coffee as she looked at him over the cup. "He didn't elaborate."

Sam looked down at the notes were stacked around him. He recognised a couple of the book titles, they'd been in Bill's study. "We don't know why, exactly," he said, glancing back up at her.

She'd scrubbed the camouflage makeup from her face before they'd headed downtown to look at the abandoned building, and in the still-early light, she looked no more than eighteen, hair pulled back from her face. Her eyes didn't, he realised, looking a bit more closely as she turned her gaze to the wall of clippings. Her eyes looked older. Like his brother's. The thought came as a surprise. In some ways, he felt years older than Dean. In others, he realised slowly, he was still just a little in awe of his big brother.

"I have, uh, visions, I guess you could call them," he said, not sure if it was a good idea to talk about it with someone he'd barely met. He needed to talk to someone about them and Dean didn't want to hear it. "They come true."

"Precognition?" Ellie asked, her lack of surprise refreshing.

"I don't know," Sam said. "They're connected with a group of people …" he trailed off, suddenly aware that he was about to enter a subject that his brother had told him repeatedly not to share with anyone else.

She didn't press him to continue, just sipped her coffee, waiting. He dragged in a deep breath.

"When I was an infant, something happened, to my family," he said, and his hands curled around his cup, the knuckles whitening slightly. "My mother was killed, by a demon."

"And the same thing happened to the people you're connected with?" Ellie asked, surprising him again with the leap. "You think it's a part of the connection?"

"I don't know," he told her honestly. "We've found people, like me. But not all of them lost their mothers." He shook his head. "They all have some kind of … ability –"

Ellie looked at him. "Some kind of psychic ability?"

He nodded, his face screwing up a little in surprise. "You don't seem all that freaked out by that."

"Should I be?" she asked, brows rising quizzically. "Psychic ability isn't exactly a new thing."

Sam let out the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding in, and shrugged. "Most people seem to be, uh, unnerved by it."

"What was the range of abilities? In you and the others?" Ellie asked, letting his comment go by.

"Um, I get visions," he said, thinking about the special children they'd met. "There was a guy, Max, he was telekinetic, but he killed himself. And three others, but only one's alive now, Andy, um, Gallagher. He can, uh, convince people of things just by telling them –"

"Mental domination?"

"I guess," Sam said, frowning. "The other two – one could electrocute people by thinking about it and touching them, I think. The other one was Andy's brother, he had the, um, mental domination thing as well."

"And you're the only one with a passive ability?" Ellie finished her coffee, getting up from the table.

Sam thought about the cupboard, the huge, heavy cupboard that had moved because he'd been desperate to get to his brother.

"Seems like," he said. "I had a – I don't know how to describe it – a moment, where I used telekinesis to move a cupboard, but I can't get it to happen again, it's like it –"

"Came when you needed it," Ellen finished his sentence, nodding. "You were upset or angry?"

"Both," Sam admitted. "You know about this crap?"

"Not much," she told him, going to the coffee pot and getting a refill. "I'm not psychic, but my – a friend was, in a couple of different ways," she added, returning to the table.

Her partner, Sam thought, remembering the conversation at the roadhouse and seeing her unwillingness to open up about it.

"It's not demonic, Sam," she said as she sat down again. "It's a normal part of human evolution, just got side-tracked by the way we went."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in a hunter/gatherer society, where groups were separated by long distances, needed to know things that weren't easily found out through the five physical senses, or had little language development, a lot of people think that those abilities were more common, more, uh, in practise. Humanity started in an environment a lot harsher than the world is today, just weather-wise, I mean. Then we got an inter-glacial and we developed towns and agriculture and societies instead."

"Why would I have it?"

"I don't know," she said. "The demon who attacked your mother, what was it doing there?"

Sam shook his head. "We don't know. The house – there was a fire and there wasn't much left after it, and my father started hunting. Raised me and Dean to be hunters," he told her. Warriors, he'd said to Dean. Soldiers in a fight against things that most of the world didn't even know about.

"How'd you get started in this?" he asked, gesturing vaguely around the room. "You had to have started young?"

Ellie leaned back in the chair, both hands cradling the cup she held. "Pretty young, yeah. Bad luck, I think," she said. "I lost my parents and it never made sense to me and I started looking for answers."

"And you found them."

She smiled, her mouth turning down wryly. "Nearly died a couple of times before I found someone who knew what they were doing. I – I got lucky with that."

"What happened?" he asked, wondering if she'd talk about it.

"He died." Her face closed up as she looked down at her cup.

"Sorry."

"It was a couple of years ago," she said. Sam could hear the forced lightness in her voice.

"And now you're on your own?" he pressed, his forehead creasing up. "It's a good way to die young."

"Sure is," she agreed readily. "But it means no one else goes down with me."

She straightened in the chair and looked at him. "Eight weeks ago, I trapped a demon in Vermont," she said. "It said that Sam Winchester was going to lead an army from Hell."

Sam felt a frisson of fear trill up his spine at the words. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Ellie said. "These other people, the ones with the abilities, what else do you have in common? Is there anything?"

"Our birth year," he told her reluctantly. "We were all born in '83. The demon attacks happened six months later."

There was a small crease, between her brows, as she stared at him. "Did your father find the demon?"

"Yeah, we found it last year," he said, feeling his throat close up with the memories. "It – it's a long story, but we – Dean and me – we think he made a deal with it."

"A deal for what?" Ellie asked.

"A deal to save Dean's life, in exchange for his own, and for a – a gun," Sam said, realising how long a story it really was.

He watched her face go a shade paler as she looked away, wondering if she'd known of that, or if some other memory had brought the reaction.

"What?"

She shook her head. "What do you know about the demon?"

"Not as much as we need to," he said. "It's got yellow eyes, not black like most demons – or red, like the crossroads demons. It's powerful. Powerful enough to ignore holy water and salt." He shrugged. "We've been looking, but we don't find many answers, mainly more questions."

"Sometimes, the question is the answer, if it's the right question," she said, somewhat cryptically, Sam thought. "Hell isn't exactly known for planning and organisation. More of a go-with-the-flow kind of deal for them."

Sam looked at her, wondering what she knew – or what she'd guessed. "That's what Ash said."

"The Fallen are supposed to have yellow eyes," she said, a little distractedly as she rubbed the heel of her hand against her forehead. "They're powerful, a lot more powerful than most demons."

"You think this isn't just some power play in Hell?" he asked.

"I don't know, Sam. That explanation just seems too easy to me." She looked around them. "We should get some sleep. Tonight's going to be busy."

"Why can't we go now?" He could feel the tension of knowing that his brother was being held by things that didn't give a damn if he lived or died building in him again. He didn't think he could just sleep.

"Because we're not ready now," she answered, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked back at him. "Knowing it's a trap is one thing. Springing it is another. Tonight, we'll be rested, packing for grizzly and able to watch and see if it really is just two of them or if there's another one. You said you didn't think two could have taken your brother."

He nodded, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "I don't think I'm gonna get much rest sitting around all day," he told her.

"Burning yourself out won't help anyone. If you can't handle yourself, I'd rather do it alone."

"Well, that's honest." Sam sighed. "I'll try."

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "We'll go in around nine."

Dean stared at the woman in front of him, his jaw clenched as the blade sliced him again. He was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, and most of his concentration was on keeping the agony of his shoulders and arms out of his head.

"What are you and your brother doing here, Dean?" She flicked her wrist, and the razor-sharp blade on the end of the fine rope open another small cut on his chest.

He dragged in a deep breath. "We're here for the cheese festival."

She smiled slowly. "Ah yes, the famous mouth of Dean Winchester. You know, you're quite admired in some of the lesser circles of Hell."

He stared at her tiredly. "Hellspawn fans … yeah, I'll pass."

The blade nicked his ribs and his teeth snapped together.

"No need for rudeness." She walked around him, looking at the sweat that mingled with the blood over his back. "What are you doing here?"

"We heard about the health spa, thought we'd check it out."

The edge of the blade scored his shoulder and he hissed with the pain.

"You know, we couldn't care less about you." She faced him, head tilted to one side. "It's your brother we want."

He lifted his head slowly. "You touch him and you'll be back in Hell so fast –"

She laughed, a loud, ringing peal of laughter that echoed from the hard walls and floor of the long room.

"You do have an inflated view of your own abilities."

She stepped close to him, dragging long sharp nails over the cuts that covered his stomach. "We'll be sure to let you live long enough to see him gutted, Dean."

He felt anger flood him, shunting the pain aside and swung his legs forward, almost catching her between them as she twisted away.

"Now, now, no going berserker before your time, Dean." She flicked her wrist again and he flinched as the blade sliced through the flesh under his collarbone, the small, bright pain bringing the agony of his body crashing back into him.

"We want you conscious and aware when it's time to peel the flesh back from Sam's body."

He let his head fall onto his chest, fighting against the pain that was riddling him. He didn't care about whether he lived or died, but he had to get clear, had to think of a way to save Sam. Had to think.

In the over-warm motel room, Sam moved restlessly on the bed, trying to force his thoughts into shutting down with a marked lack of success. He tried to steady his breathing, slow it, control it, only to find that against the darkness of his closed eyelids that brought more vivid images of what Dean might be going through. He tried to think of the past, lose himself in the memories of their shared childhood, but instead more recent memories surfaced, each one a question, demanding an answer.

Dean, we are a family. I'd do anything for you. But things will never be the way they were before. I don't want them to be. I'm not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way.

He'd said it and meant it, knowing that his brother didn't want to hear it, knowing that it hurt, but unable to tell him anything different. He didn't want the life. He never had.

Different now, though, wasn't it, a snide voice piped up in his thoughts. Different now that Dad was dead and there was all that time that had to be accounted for, all those things that you could've done, should've done, would've done if things hadn't been so screwed up.

Rolling onto his back, Sam stared at the ceiling. Things were different now. The demon had taken everything but his brother and he couldn't leave. Wouldn't leave Dean to fight it alone.

He sat up, looking around the room in frustration. He could go to that building now, check it out, break in, find Dean and –

- and what?

If there were three demons there, would he fight them all himself? Get captured for his trouble? If Dean was just bait, would they even keep his brother alive if he got himself caught? Bait was usually expendable.

Slumping back against the pillows, he let out a long exhale. He couldn't risk Dean's life in a half-assed frontal attack without knowing exactly what was going on. It chafed at him, lying here, doing nothing, but there was nothing he could do except follow the plan. It was more annoying that he knew that he was burning himself out, with the emotions and the agitation and the restless need to do something, even something stupid.

Get your head together and relax, he told himself with a wry half-smile.

Jess had gotten into meditation shortly after they'd moved in together, claiming it was a miracle cure for de-stressing before and after exams. He'd had plenty of good reasons to believe in it, but he'd been sceptical, even so. He'd tried it once. The morning of his final. Alone, instead of giggling together over the symbols and positions she'd been trying to explain to him, he'd slid into a receptive and calm state quickly, the simple symbol – a triangle enclosed in a circle – charging him with energy at the same time he'd distantly recognised his pulse and respiration slowing down to barely perceptible levels. He'd aced the final and had remained steady and cool-headed the whole day. He hadn't told her that he'd done it, he remembered. He couldn't remember why not.

Calling that symbol into his mind's eye, he tried to focus on it, then felt the odd release as the symbol seemed take everything over, shutting out thought and feeling, worry and tension and filling him, calming him … tranquilising him, he thought vaguely, aware that his muscles were soft and loose, his pulse decelerating and steady, his chest rising and falling more and more slowly.

It wasn't sleep. It wasn't unconsciousness. It wasn't really consciousness, either. Something in between. Someplace where the body recharged and the mind rested and both waited patiently.